
Qass_ 

Book _JDa_/A_ii_ 



/ 9- 



THE 



PRINCIPLE OF TELEOLOGY 




The Critical Philosophy of Kant 



DAVID R. MAJOR 

Formerly Scholar and Fellow in the Sage School of 
Philosophy, Cornell University 



Ithaca, N. Y. 

Andrus & Church 

1897 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PART I.— Historic al. 

\ I. Development of Kant's doctrine of the three-fold na- 
ture of mind, .... i 

\ 2. Changes in the form and problem of the third Critique, 16 

PART II. — The Critique of Judgment as a mediation of 
Kant's theoretical and practical Philosophy. 

\ I. Formal and real mediation distinguished, 30 

\ 2. Relation of the theoretical and practical philosophy, 34 

\ 3. Kant's theory of the Beautiful, 49 

(a) The doctrine of harmony, 6r 

(b) Distinction between beauty and perfection, ... 68 
fc) The doctrine of ' ' purposiyeness without purpose, ' ' 74 

(d) Universality and necessity of aesthetic judgments, 76 

(e) The beautiful object a union of freedom and na- 

ture, 79 

\ 4. Design in organic nature, 81 

\ 5. Relation of the principle of Teleology to Kant's ethical 

doctrines 8q 



PREFACE. 



This Essay consists of two parts : the first being his- 
torical ; the second, expository and critical. In the his- 
torical part, an effort has been made to trace the influ- 
ences and steps which led to the displacement of Aris- 
totle's bipartite division of the fundamental powers of 
mind by the present generally accepted division into 
Intellect, Feeling, and Will. It is also shown in Part I 
that Kant's original plan comprised only the critiques of 
pure and practical philosophy, and that the third Critique 
was designed at a later time, to establish a priori prin- 
ciples for the newly discoved faculty of Feeling. Final- 
ly, it is maintained that Kant combined the Critique of 
Teleology with the Critique of Taste, and issued them 
under a common title — the Critique of Judgment — be- 
cause both works center about the notion of purposive- 
ness, or design. Part II is devoted to a consideration of 
the Critique of Judgment as a mediating link between 
the critiques of pure and practical philosophy ; or, if 
one is thinking of the content — the inner nature of 
three Critiques — the object is to consider the principle 
of teleology, which the Critique of Judgment illustrates, 
as a means of mediating the modes of thought prevail- 
ing in the realms of freedom and nature. 

The edition of Kant's works by Rosenkranz and 
Schubert is referred to as R., and Hartenstein's second 
edition is indicated by the letter H. In the same way 
references have been made to Max Miiller's translation 



vi Preface. 

of the Critique of Pure Reason, and Bernard's transla- 
tion of the Critique of fudgment as M. and B., res- 
pectively. 

I am, of course, indebted to many authors and books 
for help and suggestion on particular points, and in 
most cases I have been able to acknowledge this in- 
debtedness by foot-notes. My obligations to Professor 
Caird's, The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, are, 
however, so great as to require special acknowledgement. 
I am also glad to have this opportunity of expressing 
my gratitude to all the professors under whom I studied 
while a member of the graduate department of Cornell 
University. And, in particular, I wish to express my ob- 
ligations to Professor J. E. Creighton for encouragement 
and direction in the preparation of this work. 

D.. R r M.. 

Ithaca, N. Y., August, 1897.- 



PART I. 
HISTORICAL. 

§ I. DEVELOPMENT OF KANT'S DOCTRINE OF THE 
THREE-FOLD NATURE OF MIND. 

The division of the Critical Philosophy into three 
parts rests upon Kant's recognition of three distinct 
mental faculties — Intellect, Feeling, and Will. That 
Kant was aware of the influence of his psychology in 
determining the main lines or divisions of his investiga- 
tions, is clearly shown by the following sentences from 
a letter to Reinhold, 1787 : " I am at present engaged in 
a Critique of Taste and have in this way been led to 
the discovery of another kind of a priori principles than 
I had formerly recognized. For the faculties of the 
mind are three ; the faculty of knowledge, the feeling 
of pleasure and pain, and the will. I have discovered 
a priori principles for the first of these in the Critique of 
Pure Reason, and for the third, in the Critique of Prac- 
tical Reason ; but my search for similar principles for 
the second seemed at first fruitless." 1 Many passages 
similar to the extract just quoted from the letter to 
Reinhold may be found in the Critique of fudgment, 
and also in the treatise Ueber Philosophie iiberhaupt, 
which was published in 1794. The following from § 3 
of the Introduction to the former work is typical : " All 
the faculties or capacities of the mind can be reduced to 
three, which cannot be any further derived from one 

1 R. XI. 86. H. VIII. 739 f. Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant. 
II. pp. 406 f. 



2 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

common ground : The faculty of knowledge, the feeling 
of pleasure and pain, and the faculty of desire. For the 
faculty of knowing the Understanding is alone a priori 
legislative by means of natural concepts. For the faculty 
of desire the Reason is alone a priori legislative. We 
may suppose, therefore, that Judgment which stands 
midway between Understanding and Reason may con- 
tain a priori principles for feeling." For each of the 
three faculties, Intellect, Feeling, and Will, there are, 
according to Kant's final statement, a priori principles 
of activity ; it is the province of the three Critiques to 
exhibit and explain those principles. In its completed 
form, therefore, the Critical Philosophy comprised three 
works corresponding to the three mental powers enu- 
merated above. 

Although it is true that the division of the Critical 
Philosophy into three parts rests upon the three-fold di- 
vision of mind, and that each Critique has special refer- 
ence to one particular faculty, it would be quite mistaken 
to suppose that Kant consciously set about the critical 
inquiry, to discover, if possible, a priori principles for 
each of the three mental faculties. We know, on the 
contrary, that the original plan comprised only a Cri- 
tique of theoretical philosophy, and a Critique of practical 
philosophy, corresponding to the faculties of cognition 
and desire. The proof of this is derived from the famous 
letter to Herz of 1772. Kant's words there are: "I 
am planning a work under the title, The limits of Sen- 
sibility and Reason. The work will consist of two parts, 
a theoretical and a practical. The first falls into two 
sections : first, Phenomenology in general ; and second, 
the nature and methods of Metaphysics. The second, 
likewise, falls into two parts : first, the general princi- 
ples of feeling, of taste and of sensuous desires ; second, 



Development of Kanfs Psychology. 3 

the foundations of morality." 1 It is here distinctly 
stated that the work contemplated is to consist of a 
theoretical and a practical part, and although Kant's 
plans were greatly changed subsequently, the Critiques 
of pure and practical reason are clearly foreshadowed in 
the passage just quoted. But it was not until Kant came 
to recognize the importance of the feeling life, and finally 
to coordinate Intellect, Feeling, and Will, that he 
conceived the plan of writing a third Critique dealing 
specially with Feeling as the completion of his system. 
Only after a vast amount of investigation and reflection 
by himself and his contemporaries upon the emotional ex- 
perience did Feeling come to be differentiated from In- 
tellect and Will, and not until Feeling had been thus 
marked off from and coordinated with those faculties did 
Kant see the necessity of assigning to it also a priori 
principles of activity. 2 It is now proposed to set forth, 
briefly, the steps and influences by which Kant came to 
accord Feeling a place beside Intellect and Will. 

Before the middle of the 18th century, roughly speak- 
ing, Psychologists had recognized only two main mental 
faculties — Cognition and Desire. To quote Sir William 
Hamilton : " The feelings were not recognized by any 
philosophers as the manifestation of any fundamental 
power. The distinction taken in the Peripatetic School 
by which the mental modifications were divided into 
Cognitive or Appetent and the consequent reduction of 

1 H., VIII, 688, f. 

2 Another proof that Kant's plan did not, at first, include a Critique 
of Taste is found in a note to page 21 of the first edition to the K. d. 
r. V. In this note Kant discouraged as vain all endeavors to bring 
the critical judgment of the beautiful to rational principles. At that 
time he regarded the search for a priori principles of feeling as hope- 
less. In the second edition of the K. d. r. V., the note is changed so 
as to read, 'Judgments of taste are in their principal sources empiri- 
cal. ' 



4 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

all faculties to the faatltas cognoscendi and the facie lias 
appetendi was the distinction which was long most uni- 
versally prevalent." 1 Feeling was regarded either as a 
particular kind of intellectual consciousness, a lower 
kind of knowledge ; or it was confounded with desire or 
impulse. But during the half century immediately fol- 
lowing 1740 — a period which is characterized by histor- 
ians as one of great psychological ( activity ' — Feeling 
came to be regarded as an independent mental function, 
and was assigned a place along side Intellect and Will. 
The activity in psychology referred to, doubtless was 
caused by, or rather was a part of the wave of individ- 
ualism that swept over Europe in the latter part of the 
1 8th century. The same individualistic movement, the 
same subjectivism that revolted against custom and au- 
thority might naturally be expected to revolt against met- 
aphysic. Interest in theories of the universe, its nature 
and origin, was overshadowed by enthusiasm for man 
the individual. The watchword of the age was, " the 
proper study of mankind is man." Man, his happiness, 
his welfare present and future, his virtues and vices, 
strength and foibles, became the center of interest for the 
illuminationists. It is not surprising, therefore, that a 
part of this grand movement should find expression in 
most searching analyses of individual psychical states. 
There thus sprang up a luxuriant growth of psychologi- 
cal literature. One need only mention the works of Men- 
delssohn, Sulzer and Tetens in Germany ; those of Bon- 
net, Condillac, DeTracy, Helvetius, and Cabanis among 
French writers as examples of a literature rich in observa- 
tions and analyses of the individual psychical states. 
It was during this period of great psychological interest 
that Feeling attained a rank equal with Intellect and 

1 Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysic, Lecture 41. 



Development of Kanfs Psychology. 5 

Will. It was this period that saw the displacement of 
the bipartite division of mind by the tripartite. 

Our effort to trace the steps which led to this change 
must take account first of the work of Leibnitz. For while 
there is no disposition on the part of that philosopher to 
break with the old division, yet the investigations which 
led to the new classification of the mental powers, and 
especially to the reflection upon the feeling of beauty 
and pleasure-pain experience, are directly traceable to 
the influence of his doctrines. To understand Leibnitz's 
influence upon subsequent psychology and aesthetics it 
is necessary to recall a few of the leading doctrines of 
his philosophy. In the first place, he maintained that 
the world is composed of an infinite number of harmoni- 
ously related parts and that true knowledge consists in 
accurately mirroring that harmony. In the second 
place, we may recall Leibnitz's doctrine that there are 
three stages of clearness with which the mind mirrors the 
harmony and perfection of the world. 1 Corresponding to 
the first stage we have obscure perceptions as in a dream- 
less sleep or in a swoon ; corresponding to the second 
stage we have confused perceptions as "when one hears 
the roar of the sea which strikes one when on the shore, 
but does not perceive that the roar is made up of an in- 
finite number of little noises." 2 We also perceive con- 
fusedly when we are unable to see that a given color is 

1 The reader will notice that this account leaves out of view Leib- 
nitz's doctrine of the continuity of all being, the theory that from the 
lowest monad to the highest there is a gradual increase in clearness of 
perception. It would be misleading to say that Leibnitz made a sharp 
line of division between the perceptions denominated obscure, con- 
fused, clear and distinct. On the contrary, each class shades off into 
those near it as dawn into daylight. The words obscure, clear, etc., 
are used only to mark prominent stages in the scale of perceptual be- 
ing. 

2 Gerhardt, Leibnitz's Schriften v. 47. Duncan's Trans., p. 293. 



6 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

made by mixing two different colors, e.g., we do not see 
that green is caused by mixing yellow and blue. The 
highest stage of perception is the stage of knowledge, or 
truth, in which the mind faithfully and adequately rep- 
resents the external world. " The mind beholds ideas 
as though in perspective. The nearer a picture the 
clearer the lines ; the further away the less clear and less 
distinct. We have obscure ideas when it is not possible 
to distinguish them from ourselves or from other ideas ; 
confused ideas when the elements of the ideas are not 
distinguishable ; distinct ideas when it is possible to re- 
solve them into their factors." l If the ideas are distinct 
the mind is said to possess true knowledge, and to 
accurately mirror the harmony and perfection of the 
world. But if that perfection and harmony are indis- 
tinctly perceived the mind experiences not truth but the 
feeling of beauty. The pleasure which a product of art 
causes is the result of an unconscious recognition, a con- 
fused perception of the perfection and harmony in the 
relation of its parts. " Music charms us, although its 
beauty only consists in the harmony of numbers and in 
the reckoning of the beats or vibrations of sounding 
bodies, which meet at intervals, of which we are not 
conscious and which the soul does not cease to make. 
The pleasures which sight finds in proportions are of 
the same nature." 2 The harmony, or perfection, in the 
relation of musical vibrations, if confusedly apprehended, 
arouses the feeling of Beauty. If that perfection is dis- 
tinctly cognised we should experience not beauty but 
truth. " Beauty and Truth differ only in the fact that 
perfection is confusedly apprehended in one case, dis- 
tinctly in the other. 3 Iyeibnitz, thus, by the conception 

^Schmidt, Leibnitz and Baumgarten, p. 41. 

2 Prin. d. I. Nat., 17. 

3 Erdtnann, History of Phil., \ 288, 2, 3, 4, 5. 



Development of KanPs Psychology. 7 

of Beauty as the confused apprehension of perfection 
moulded the character of all aesthetical speculation prior 
to the appearance of the critical philosophy. The men 
who developed that branch of philosophy merely elabor- 
ated the thought of the master. 

Wolff, upon whom the mantle of L,eibnitz fell, is im- 
portant for our purpose mainly because of things he did 
not do, but handed down as problems to his pupil Baum- 
garten. Following Leibnitz, Wolff distinguished two 
main forms of mental activity — knowing, (factiltas cog- 
noscendi) and desiring {facultas appetendi). He also 
adopted Leibnitz's distinction of two forms or stages of 
cognition : (i) a higher form concerned with clear and 
distinct ideas including Attention, Understanding and 
Reason ; and, (2) a lower form concerned with confused 
ideas and comprising Sensation, Imagination, and 
Memory. Wolff having treated only the higher forms 
of cognition his pupil, Baumgarten, took up the investi- 
gation of the lower forms under the title Aesthetics, which 
he defined as " the science of the lower forms of knowl- 
edge. ' ' l Wolff, in his logic, had established the science of 
the correct use of the higher forms of mind ; Baumgarten 
wished to complement the logic with a science of the 
proper use of the lower forms of knowledge. Inheriting 
the Leibnitzian psychology through Wolff, he also in- 
herited the fundamental tenet of the Leibnitzian theory 

Note. — The use of the term aesthetics to designate both the theory 
of the beautiful and the science of the sensibility will be understood 
if it is remembered that the experience of the Beautiful depends upon 
the activity of the senses. The close connection between their 
activity and the beautiful experience justifies the double use of the 
word "Aesthetics." Sense- perception of the perfect produces the ex- 
perience of the beautiful, perfection-sensed gives pleasure. The fact 
also that both are for Leibnitz confused knowledge warrants their in- 
clusion under a common title. 

1 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 15. 



8 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

of beauty, viz., that beauty consists in a confused per- 
ception of perfection. So far as aesthetics is concerned 
Baumgarten's work consisted mainly in an effort to de- 
termine the subjective and objective conditions of the 
beautiful, and thereby contributed towards bringing into 
prominence the feeling life. 

It seems proper at this point to consider the claim 
made by Gottsched, and quoted with approval by 
Schmidt, that Baumgarten, although adopting and re- 
taining the main features of the Iyeibnitzian philosophy, 
clearly anticipated the tripartite division of mind 
established by Kant. 1 In support of their claim on be- 
half of Baumgarten they cite the fact that he dis- 
tinguished clearly the faculty of cognizing anything ob- 
scurely and confusedly, or indirectly as the faculty of 
lower cognition from the higher faculty of knowledge 
which possesses logical clearness and certainty. He 
assumes, therefore, it is said, for the sensuous idea a 
special though lower faculty as an independent factor of 
the human mind, having its own peculiar nature, laws 
and perfection. It is claimed, moreover, that Baum- 
garten distinguishes between conceptual truth and 
material perfection, i. <?., sensuous truth — -Beauty — and 
so between logic and aesthetics as belonging to entirely 
different spheres. This, it is said, is a distinct advance 
beyond the Wolffian separation of empirical and rational 
disciplines. In Wolff's scheme the lower and higher 
faculties differed only in degree, while Baumgarten 
originated the idea of two separate faculties. It is very 
difficult to judge of the merits of this claim made on be- 
half of Baumgarten because of the uncertain meaning 
that attaches to the word 'faculty.' But it is quite 
probable that Baumgarten meant by ' faculty of lower 

1 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 44, f. 



Development of Kanfs Psychology. 9 

cognition ' a capacity or power (not very different from 
Wolff's meaning) of having knowledge of a lower order 
than that yielded by Reason and Understanding. It is 
not probable that he thought of making Feeling a 
faculty distinct from and coordinate with Intellect and 
Will as was done by Kant and the contemporary 
psychologists. If this view of the matter is correct, 
Baumgarten can scarcely be said to have advanced in his 
psychology beyond his teacher, Wolff. 

Baumgarten's aesthetical theories were developed by 
Meier, a zealous student of the subject who adopted the 
Wolffian division of cognition into higher and lower 
(sensuous) forms. Like Baumgarten, Meier regarded 
beauty as sensuously perceived perfection, and therefore, 
as belonging to the lower form of knowledge. " Die 
Schonheit ist eine Vollkommenheit, insofern sie undeut- 
lich oder sinnlich erkant wird. " * Meier repeatedly in- 
sisted that the schbne Erkenntniss must be indistinct, 
that is, sensuous. An act of the Understanding, he main- 
tained, which analyzes a perceived object into its parts 
destroys the sensation of beauty ; for ' beauty is perfection 
confusedly apprehended ' . It is thus seen that Meier's 
contribution to the science of Aesthetics does not differ 
from, or carry any further, the work of Baumgarten ; 
his influence upon the psychology of his time consisted 
in bringing into the foreground the emotional experience. 

The next noteworthy name in this connection is that 
of Sulzer who insisted that the Wolffian division of mind 
into Intellect and Will implied " an undue disregard of 
the sensations of the agreeable and disagreeable. " 2 To 
Sulzer, therefore, belongs the credit of first laying special 
emphasis upon the pleasure-pain experience. In the 

1 Sommers, Deutsche Psychologie unci Aesthetic, p. 28. 

2 Brdmann, op. cit. \ 294. 4. 



io Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

Allgemeine Theorie der schbnen Kiinste, 177T, Sulzer 
coordinates the faculty of sensing, i. e., of being affected 
in a pleasant or unpleasant manner, with the faculty of 
cognizing the characteristics of things. l In the same 
work he places the aesthetic sensibility between thought 
and actioii. In explaining methods of inspiring men to 
noble conduct he points out that one must not only ap- 
peal to the Intellect, but must touch the feelings as well. 
" The Understanding yields nothing but knowledge and 
in this there is no power of acting. If the truth is to be 
effective then must it not only be cognized in the form 
of the Good, but must also be sensed, for only by this 
means is the active power excited. " 2 Here Sulzer ap- 
proaches very nearly to a definite statement of a tripar- 
tite division, and, perhaps, failed to do so only because 
he was concerned with Aesthetics and not with Psychol- 
ogy- 

The examination of the pleasure-pain experience 
which Sulzer was the first to treat with special care was 
more thoroughly and exhaustively carried out by Men- 
delssohn in Brief e iiber die Empfindungen, 1755. In 
the Brief e, Mendelssohn contended against those who 
would acknowledge only Cognition and Will as funda- 
mental activities, and demanded that Sensibility be put 
along side those faculties. The sensibility here referred 
to is the power of sensing the beautiful. In the Mor- 
genstunden, Mendelssohn describes the character and in- 
dicates the place of the faculty of sensing the Beautiful. 
His language is, " As a rule one ought to distinguish 
two mental faculties — the cognitive and the volitional — 
and place the sensation of pleasure and pain with the 
faculty of desire. . . . But it seems that the satis- 

1 Dessoir, Geschichte, d. n. Deutschen Psychologie, I, p. 269. 
2 Sommers, op. tit., p. 205. 



Development of KanPs Psychology. 1 1 

faction one feels in the beauty of Nature and Art is 
wholly free from inclination or desire ; it can be contem- 
plated with quiet satisfaction. I shall call the faculty of 
beauty the Billigungsvermbgen, and thereby distinguish 
it from cognition of the truth as well as from the desire 
for the good. " l That is, Mendelssohn proposes as a 
substitute for the old division of mind into cognition and 
desire a division that would include also a faculty of 
sensing the Beautiful. The new faculty is made to stand 
between the other two and unites by 'the smallest grada- 
tions ' their activity. It thus appears that the present 
commonly accepted division of the mind into Intellect, 
Feeling, and Will was first stated, though somewhat 
vaguely, by Mendelssohn. 

In 1776, Tetens, a distinguished psychologist of the 
period, was led to make the same classification of the 
mental faculties. "I discover," he writes in the Philo- 
sophische Versuche uber die menschliche Natur und Hire 
Entwicklung, i three fundamental powers of mind ; 
Feeling, Understanding, and Will. Feeling includes 
sensitiveness as well as the mere feeling of new changes. 
The power of ideating and the power of thinking, both 
belong to the Understanding. The remaining faculty 
which is coordinated with Feeling and Understanding, 
and is called Will." 2 Whatever one may say of a certain 
vagueness in the statement of the three-fold division of 
the mental faculties by Sulzer, Mendelssohn, and Baum- 
garten, if that merit is accredited to the last named, there 
is no mistaking Tetens' language. It is a clear and 
definite statement of the division which met the approval 
of Kant and which was established by the might of his 
authority. 

1 Mendelssohn, Schriften, Vol. 2, pp. 294-5. Morgenstunden, VII. 

2 Tetens, Versuche, Vol. I, p. 625. 



12 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

The result of the foregoing sketch may be summed 
up by noting, (i) that the three-fold division of mind 
owes its existence directly to the widespread activity in 
the field of aesthetics and to the particular trend, or 
direction, given that activity by the doctrines of Leib- 
nitz and Wolff, more especially to the L,eibnitzian con- 
ception that, ' Beauty is perfection confusedly appre- 
hended.' After the work of the writers on aesthetics 
had brought to the foreground the feeling life, it was 
but natural that the power or faculty of Feeling should 
attain a rank coordinate with Intellect and Will. 

Contenting ourselves with this somewhat fragmentary 
historical outline, we have now to inquire (i) when Kant 
first became interested in the question of the division of 
the mental faculties, and (2) what influence, if any, each 
of the investigators mentioned above had upon his re- 
flections upon the subject. The following passage from 
a work entitled Untersttchung uber die deutlichkeit der 
Grundsatze der natiirlichen Theologie tend Moral, pub- 
lished 1763, shows that at that time Kant saw the need 
of a careful examination of the fundamental mental 
faculties : " Without an exact knowledge and analysis 
of the many feelings of the mind, the feelings of the 
sublime, the beautiful, disgust, etc., the motives of our 
nature cannot be known. Explanations of pleasure and 
pain, of desire, nausea and the like have never been fur- 
nished because adequate analyses were lacking." 1 In the 
same treatise Kant distinguished between cognition as 
the faculty of perceiving the truth and feeling the 
faculty of sensing the goody 2 It is evident from these 
expressions that at that time, 1763, the problem of the 

J R. I., 84, f. H. II, 288. The passage is quoted by J. B. Meyer, 
KanVs Psychologie, p. 41. 

2 It is possible, Meyer thinks, that this distinction was suggested to 
Kant by Hutcheson's Theory of the moral sense. 



Development of Kant's Psychology. 13 

true division of the faculties was clearly before Kant. 
Further, an examination of the correspondence compiled 
by Kant's editors shows that his views experienced 
numerous changes before he finally settled upon the divi- 
sion into Intellect, Feeling, and Will. Setting aside the 
needless task of enumerating those changes, we proceed 
to the second question : What influence had Kant's con- 
temporaries or predecessors upon his reflection on the 
problem of the proper classification of the fundamental 
mental powers ? 

First, the historians agree in the statement that Kant 
was familiar with the works of Baumgarten and Meier, 
and used them as his guides in the sphere of aesthetics. 
These works, it is said, 1 were always before him in pre- 
paring and delivering his lectures on that subject. The 
influence from this source we may suppose, therefore, to 
have been considerable, for the obvious reason that fol- 
lowing the lead of such zealous students of aesthetics 
naturally would lead to an increased knowledge and 
sense of the importance of the feeling life. It is highly 
probable, also, that Kant knew Sulzer's essay in which 
he had coordinated the faculty of being affected in a 
pleasant or unpleasant manner with the faculty of Ideas. 
There is no ground for supposing, however, that Kant 
could have received more than an impetus to his own 
reflection from Sulzer's work. 

The two men who seem to have exerted the most di- 
rect and marked influence upon Kant are Tetens and 
Mendelssohn. Krdmann makes the positive, but proba- 
bly not carefully considered statement, that Kant based 
his assumption of three distinct mental faculties upon 
the authority of Tetens. Meyer questions this state- 
ment, and maintains with good ground that, while Kant 

1 Erdmann, op. ciL, \ 290, 10, 11. 



14 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

doubtless was familiar with Tetens' Versuche, and the 
three-fold division which it proposed, he received from 
it no more than direction and guidance in his own in- 
vestigations. Kant was not the man to adopt the views 
of other writers without first carefully scrutinizing their 
validity. It would be very unlike the Copernican phi- 
losopher to adopt a view or theory on the authority of 
some other man or men. 

Mendelssohn, in the opinion of Meyer, influenced 
Kant's reflections upon this subject much more than 
Tetens ; yet there is ground for supposing that the influ- 
ence was mutual. In 1776, Mendelssohn placed the fa- 
culty of Sensation, by which we sense anything as 
pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, etc., between the 
faculties of cognition and desire. This view clearly 
does not accord with Kant's final statement of the tri- 
partite division ; it differs from it especially in that it 
confuses the aesthetical and the ethical elements in sen- 
sation. In 1785, however, Mendelssohn made a sharp 
distinction between Sensation, as the faculty of sensing 
the pleasant and unpleasant, and the desire for and the 
sensation of the Good. This view approaches that ex- 
pressed by Kant in the letter written to Reinhold in 
1787. 1 But the strongest reason, in the opinion of 
Meyer, for believing that Mendelssohn was largely influ- 
ential in bringing Kant to his final position on this ques- 
tion, is the fact that Mendelssohn visited Konigsberg in 
1777, and, while there, conversed with Kant on philosoph- 
ical subjects. This circumstance, together with the fact 
that both had long been interested in the problem of the 
distribution of the mental powers, leads Meyer to think it 
highly probable that they exchanged views concerning 
it. However, as Meyer would admit, it is wholly a mat- 

1 Meyer, Kant's Psychologie, p. 61 f. 



Development of Kant's Psychology. 15 

ter of conjecture, that Kant and Mendelssohn discussed 
the point referred to ; further, it is a matter of conject- 
ure what the result of such a discussion would be, sup- 
posing it to have occurred. But the fact that Mendels- 
sohn was deeply interested in explorations and investi- 
gations regarding the feeling experience seemed to 
Meyer to afford ground for supposing that he would not 
neglect the opportunity of urging upon Kant the im- 
portance of that aspect of individual consciousness. We 
are warranted in thinking, therefore, he maintains, that 
Kant received from Mendelssohn a new and deeper in- 
terest in the feeling life, especially the feeling of beauty, 
and was thus led to assign this experience to a separate 
faculty of the mind. 

It must be admitted, however, that we cannot exactly 
determine how much Kant owes to Mendelssohn, 
or to any other thinker, and how much is due to 
his own independent reflection ; we cannot measure 
exactly the influence which Kant's contemporaries, or 
any one of them, had upon his investigations regarding 
the proper division of the mental powers. The pro- 
posed innovation in the division of the fundamental 
powers of mind was only one of the many psychological 
novelties with which the air was charged. And Kant, 
like every great scientific worker, was responsive to the 
influences of his time, and in turn he influenced the 
world of thought and action about him. So with refer- 
ence to the question in hand, we may be sure that Kant's 
displacement of the bipartite division of the mental 
powers by the tripartite was the result of his own reflec- 
tion guided and stimulated by other investigators. 

In concluding this section one may repeat that it was 
not until Kant came to recognise Feeling as an inde- 
pendent mental faculty that the plan of writing a third 



1 6 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

Critique occurred to him. The Critique of Pure Reason 
established a priori principles for the Understanding ; the 
Critique of Practical Reason exhibited the a priori 
principles of Desire. It would seem then, that Feeling, 
as an independent mental faculty, required a separate 
set of principles to regulate its activity. This demand 
was fulfilled in the Critique of Judgment, the work 
which formally completed Kant's critical investigations. 

§ 2. CHANGES IN THE FORM AND PROBLEM OF THE 
THIRD CRITIQUE. 

We have traced in the preceding section the influences 
and steps by which Kant came to design a third Cri- 
tique. We saw how the activity in Aesthetics brought 
to the foreground the emotional life ; how gradually the 
feeling experience came to be assigned to a separate 
power of mind ; also how Kant admitted Feeling to a 
rank coordinate with Intellect and Will ; and, finally, 
that he designed the third Critique to establish a priori 
principles of activity for the newly discovered faculty. 
We have seen, also, (p. i.) that when Kant wrote to 
Reinhold, 1787, regarding the forthcoming work, he in- 
tended to confine his research to a Critique of Taste — 
an effort to discover a priori principles for judgments of 
the beautiful. It is easily understood how this phase 
rather than any other of our feeling experience, i.e., the 
feeling of beauty, attracted Kant's attention first and in- 
duced him to undertake the discovery of a priori prin- 
ciples for the activity of feeling — as he had previously 
done for intellect and will — this is easily understood 
when we remember that the investigations of the Wolff- 
ians— Baumgarten, Meier, and L,ambert — and the 111- 
uminationists — Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Sulzer — were 
concerned mainly with the analysis of the experience of 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 17 

the beautiful aud the effort to discover its objective and 
subjective conditions. Their labors brought judgments 
about the beautiful into such clear light that they ap- 
peared to Kant to need " rationalizing " ; they seemed 
important enough to justify the attempt to find a priori 
principles for them. In its inception, therefore, the 
third Critique was to deal only with judgments of Taste, 
it was to be concerned with the single purpose of ration- 
alizing aesthetical Judgments. 

But when the third Critique appeared, it included not 
only a Critique of Taste (Critique of the aesthetical 
Judgment), but also the Critique of teleological Judg- 
ment dealing with the problem of design in organic 
nature. Kant's reason for embodying both discussions 
in the same work may be inferred from certain passages 
in his writings, and from the general character of the 
two Treatises. Thus in section 8 of the Introduction to 
the Critique of Judgment he says : " Purposiveness may 
be represented in an object given in experience on a 
merely subjective ground — or it may be represented ob- 
jectively as the harmony of the form of the object with 
the possibility of the thing itself." Again in the same 
section : " We can regard natural beauty as the presenta- 
tion of the concept of the formal (merely subjective) 
purposiveness, and natural purposiveness as the presenta- 
tion of the concept of real (objective) purposiveness. 
The former we judge by the faculty of Taste, the latter 
by the Understanding and Reason. On this is based the 
division of the Critique of Judgment into the Critique 
of the aesthetical and the Critique of teleological Judg- 
ment." In other words, Nature is subjectively purpose 
ive in so far as the contemplation of its various forms 
arouses the emotion of Beauty ; it is really purposive in 
so far as the objects of nature conform to ideas, or con- 



1 8 Teleology in Kant^s Critical Philosophy. 

cepts. Objects judged aesthetically are judged with re- 
ference to their adaptation to the harmonious function- 
ing of our cognitive faculties. Objects are judged tel- 
eologically when their possibility is inexplicable except 
on the assumption that they are the realization of a plan 
or idea. The beautiful object displays a certain pur- 
posiveness with reference to the faculties of knowledge 
and their accordant activity ; such objects are subject- 
ively purposive. Organisms exhibit what Kant calls 
objective purposiveness ; they seem to actualize, or em- 
body a concept, or plan. Purposiveness, therefore, is the 
principle, is fundamental to, is the guide for both 
aesthetical and teleological Judgments. Both activities 
proceed according to one and the same rule. Caird's 
profound observation that " the Critique of Judgment is 
equivalent to a discussion of the validity of the teleo- 
logical idea," 1 tersely expresses the same thought, 
that the central, the most important idea in the Critique 
of Judgment, the idea about which the discussions cen- 
ter, is that of design, or teleology. 

If now we turn to the faculty which acts in accordance 
with this principle, we find that both functions (the 
aesthetical and the teleological) are referred to the re- 
flective Judgment, which Kant distinguished from the 
determinant Judgment by the fact that the latter sub- 
sumes the particular under a given universal (rule, law, 
or principle), while the reflective Judgment endeavors to 
find a universal for the given particular. The determin- 
ant Judgment prescribes laws to nature, the reflective 
gives a law only to itself and not to nature. Kant dis- 
tinguishes the two forms of Judgment in the Introduc- 
tion to the Critique of Judgment 2 as follows: "If the 

1 Caird, Critical Phil, of Kant, II., p. 415. 
2 R., IV, 17. H.,V, 185. B., 16. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 19 

universal (the rule, the principle, the law) be given, the 
Judgment which subsumes the particular under it is de- 
terminant. But if only the particular is given for which 
the universal has to be found, the Judgment is merely 
reflective." The determinant Judgment subsumes under 
universals furnished by the understanding ; the reflective 
Judgment subsumes under a universal created by itself. 
The former brings the particular under the universal, 
transcendental laws of the Understanding — the schema- 
tised categories. It brings an infinitude of particulars 
under the universal a priori rules of the Understanding. 
Kant refers to this form of Judgment in the Introduc- 
tion to the K. d. r. V. as the faculty of subsuming under 
the rules of the Understanding, i. e., of determining 
whether anything falls under a given rule or not. The 
1 anything ' is the manifold of sense synthesized by 
Imagination. The distinguishing mark, then, of the 
activity of the determinant Judgment is that the general, 
the universal, under which it subsumes the particular, the 
manifold of Sense, is given. Now according to Kant 
the activity of the determinant Judgment is all that is 
required to supply us with a knowledge of nature, to 
furnish us with an experience which we call objective, 
to enable us to know nature as an object of possible ex- 
perience. But this activity alone is inadequate to give 
us an ordered system of knowledge. " The forms of 
nature are so manifold, and there are so many modifica- 
tions of the universal transcendental natural concepts 
left undetermined by the laws given a priori by the 
Understanding — because these only concern the possi- 
bility of nature — (as an object of Sense) that there must 
be laws for these forms also." * That is, the determin- 
ant judgment supplies us with a world of natural objects, 

»R., IV, 17. H., V, 186. B., 17. 



20 Teleology in Kaitfs Critical Philosophy. 

but these remain disconnected and isolated ; order and sys- 
tem are wanting. Caird thus expresses the imperfection 
and incompleteness of the product yielded by the activity 
of the determinant judgment : " An endless variation of 
the detail of experience was still possible consistently with 
the determination of its objects and their general rela- 
tions by the laws of the Understanding. Nay, the ob- 
jects given might be so manifold, and their similarity so 
slight, that the effort to subsume them under these laws 
might altogether fail. In supposing that knowledge is 
possible, therefore, we are supposing, not only that ob- 
jects as perceived are confined to the general conditions 
under which they are known as objects, but that, in 
their detail they are not infinitely varied, but have a 
certain similarity and continuity through all their dif- 
ference, which makes it possible for the intellect to get 
a hold upon them." 1 The activity of the determinant 
judgment being limited to the subsumption of the 
synthesized manifold under laws of the Understanding, it 
is insufficient to yield a system of knowledge. We have 
an objective experience but it lacks order and unity. 
Hence it is at this stage that the demand for a principle 
of unity arises ; it is at this point that the function of 
the reflective Judgment and its unifying principle be- 
comes important. 

We have seen that in the case of the determinant 
Judgment its principle of unification, its universal is fur- 
nished by the Understanding ; in the case of the reflective 
Judgment, however, its principle is self-given and self- 
imposed. The nature of this latter principle has already 
been anticipated, the principle, viz., of regarding the va- 
riety in the forms and laws of nature as capable of being 
reduced to an order and unity prearranged by a design- 

1 Caird, op. tit., II, p. 411. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 21 

ing Intelligence. " The particular empirical laws in re- 
spect of what is in them left undetermined by the uni- 
versal laws of the Understanding, must be considered in 
accordance with such unity as they would have if an 
Understanding ( although not our Understanding ) had 
furnished them to our cognitive faculties so as to make 
possible a system of experience according to particular 
laws of Nature. " l We must regard the world as pur- 
posive, i. e. % it must be represented as if an Understand- 
ing contained the ground of the unity of its manifold of 
form and law. Assuming the standpoint of the reflec- 
tive Judgment, we must think the world as an ordered, 
intelligible cosmos, and not as a confused, unintelligible 
chaos. To assert that the world is purposive is to assert 
its intelligibility. Hegel thus expresses the nature and 
function of Kant's reflective Judgment : " The reflective 
power of Judgment is invested by Kant with the func- 
tion of an Intuitive Understanding; i. e., whereas the 
particulars had hitherto appeared, so far as the universal 
or abstract identity was concerned, adventitious and in- 
capable of being deduced from it, the Intuitive Under- 
standing apprehends the particulars as moulded and 
formed by the universal itself. " 2 We proceed in our re- 
flection upon nature according to the principle that a 
supreme intelligence has ordered the laws and phenom- 
ena of nature with reference to a given end. We employ 
this notion of design ( 1 ) in the process of reducing our 
knowledge of nature to an ordered system of knowledge, 
( 2 ) in interpreting organic nature, ( 3 ) in explaining 
the Beautiful in Nature and Art. The reflective Judg- 
ment as thus described, is the faculty which employs the 

■R., IV, 18. H., V, 186. B. 18. 

2 Hegel, Werke, VI, p. 116. Encyclopaedic, $55. Wallace, Tra?is. 
of Logic, p. 112. 



22 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

idea of purposiveness in the realm of the beautiful and 
in organic nature. 

In conclusion, one may repeat in answer to the ques- 
tion, What were Kant's reasons for putting the Critique 
of aesthetical Judgment and the Critique of teleological 
Judgment in the same work ? first, that both classes of 
judgment rest upon the same principle : — purposiveness ; 
secondly, that the same faculty, the reflective judgment, 
is operative in both. The following quotation from the 
treatise Uber Philosophie uberhaupt, originally designed 
to form the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, 
confirms this view : " It is demanded that the Critique 
of the teleological faculty and that of the aesthetical fa- 
culty be united as resting upon the same principle. 1 
For the teleological as well as the aesthetical judgment 
belongs to the reflective judgment and not the determi- 
nant. " 2 This passage, the clearest I have found on the 
subject, as was stated, is from the treatise which was 
originally intended to form the Introduction to the Cri- 
tique of Judgment and fully agrees with the passage 
quoted (p. 17) from the Introduction to the work as it 
now stands. 

In addition to the reasons already advanced in ex- 
planation and justification of the connection of the two 
works, viz., that both center about the principle of de- 
sign, and that both come under the dominion of the re- 
flective Judgment, one may suppose that another con- 
sideration tended to commend to Kant the plan of com- 
bining the two treatises ; the fact, namely, that in the 
course of his reflection he had come to regard the prin- 
ciple of purposiveness as a mediating link between the 

1 The " same principle " referred to, is, of course, the principle of 
purposiveness, or design. 

2 R., I, 614 f. H., VI, 401. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 23 

doctrines of the critiques of pure and practical Reason. 
Now when purposiveness came to be regarded as a prin- 
ciple of mediation between the doctrines of the former 
critiques, every discussion and every illustration of 
that principle, which, as Kant believed, would harmon- 
ize the results of the earlier critiques, would be brought 
together in one work. Every fact and every argument 
that would contribute toward throwing light upon the 
teleological notion naturally would be gathered under 
the same title. Although Kant nowhere intimates that 
this consideration had any influence whatever in causing 
him to combine the two discussions, it cannot be wholly 
fanciful to suppose that after he recognized in the notion 
of design the key to the unification of the earlier cri- 
tiques, he naturally would see the propriety of combining 
a discussion of the design manifest in the beautiful with 
that of the design thought to be displayed by organic 
nature. The Critiqtce of Judgment had come to be re- 
garded as something more than a completion of the 
critical system as a number of mechanically related 
parts ; it contained the discussion of a principle which 
would unite the system into a harmonious whole. We 
may suppose, therefore, that as the necessity of design- 
ing the third critique with reference to the mediation of 
the former critiques became more urgent, the fitness of 
uniting the two discussions of teleology in the same 
work became more apparent. And while it is true that 
when the third critique was originally planned its prob- 
lem was limited to a determination of the a priori prin- 
ciples of Taste, yet the fact that the key to the ex- 
perience of the beautiful and to the interpretation of 
organic nature lies in the notion of purposiveness, and 
the further fact, that the third critique, as the unfolding 
and illustration of that notion, is the keystone, the 



24 Teleology in Kanf s Critical Philosophy. 

unifier of the critical system, fully justifies the inclusion 
of the critiques of the aesthetical and teleological judg- 
ment under the same title. 

Even if the above is accepted as an explanation and 
justification for the union of the two treatises under the 
same title, it is still maintained by Adamson, l and, I 
think rightly, that the Critique of aesthetical Judgment 
forms one distinct work with principles of its own, and 
is the peculiar and proper subject of the third Critique. 
In support of this proposition, the following quotation 
may be submitted : " The faculty of cognition according 
to concepts has its a priori principles in the pure Un- 
derstanding ( the concepts of Nature ), the Will in pure 
Reason ( its concepts of Freedom ). There yet remains 
among the general properties of the mind a mediating 
faculty or sensibility, viz., the feeling of pleasure and 
pain ; so likewise among the higher cognitive faculties 
there remains a mediating faculty, the Judgment. Now 
what is more natural than to suppose that the Judgment 
contains a priori principles for Feeling. " 2 After Kant 
adopted the three-fold division of Mind into Intellect, 
Feeling, and Will, and after the first two Critiques had 
established a priori principles for the Intellect and Will, 
the idea of completeness seemed to demand that the dis- 
covery of a priori principles for Feeling be undertaken. 
That is, the investigation of the feeling experience, the 
attempt to determine a priori principles for judgments 
of the beautiful would complete the work so far as crit- 
icism was concerned. It was not necessary, it was even 
beside the task, so far as completeness of treatment was 
concerned, to enter upon the investigation of the pur- 
posiveness manifest in organic products which forms the 

1 The Philosophy of Kanl, p. 235. 

2 R., I, p. 587. Quoted by Adamson. op. cit. p. 235. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 25 

second part of the third Critique as issued. The follow- 
ing passage affords additional proof that Kant regarded 
the Critique of aesthetical Judgment in particular to be 
necessary for the completion of his system : " The Cri- 
tique of Taste, which formerly was for the improvement 
of Taste, opened, when considered from the transcenden- 
tal point of view, in that it filled a gap in the system of 
our faculties of cognition, a remarkable, and it seems to 
me, a very promising outlook towards a completed sys- 
tem of all the mind's powers so far as they are related 
in their determination not only to the sensuous but also 
to the supersensuous." x 

Stadler, who agrees with Adamson in maintaining 
that the Critique of the aesthetical Judgment is all that 
properly belongs to the third Critique, states the object of 
the investigation in his work, KanPs Teleologie? to be 
" to show that the Critique of the teleological judgment 
stands in a close and important relation to the Critique 
of pure Reason. " That is, Stadler proposes to show that 
the thought elaborated in the Critique of the teleological 
Judgment, viz., that in our investigation of organic na- 
ture we must proceed upon the supposition that organ- 
isms are the result of design is merely a fuller treatment 
of the doctrine sketched in the K. d. r. V. under the head- 
ing, Of the regulative use of the Ideas of pure Reason. 3 
That doctrine, briefly stated, is that in all our investiga- 
tions we must proceed on the theory that the world has 
originated in the design of a supreme Intelligence ; that 
purpose, plan, pervades and is revealed in the world of 
nature. Accordingly, Stadler argues that the union of the 
two treatises in the same volume, under the same title 
does not signify their absolute coordination. Two pas- 

>R., 1, p. 615. H., VI, 402. 

2 Stadler. Kant's Teleologie, p. 27. 

3 R., II, 499- H., Ill, 435 ff. M.,II,55iff. 



26 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

sages, one from the Preface, another from the Introduc- 
tion to their, d. £/., seem to confirm his position. From 
the Preface he quotes, " The confusion on account of a 
principle exists mainly in the aesthetical Judgment, . 
. . . the most important part of a Critique of the 
faculty of Judgment is the critical investigation of 
Taste. " l From the Introduction he cites, " the aesthet- 
ical Judgment is a particular faculty of judging things 
according to a rule but not according to concepts ; the 
ideological judgment on the other hand is no particular 
faculty but only the reflective Judgment in general. " 2 
Again in stating the problem of the Critique of Judg- 
ment, Kant enumerated three things which he proposed 
to investigate: (i) " whether Judgment, the mediating 
link between Understanding and Reason, has a priori 
principles 5(2) whether these, if they exist at all, are 
constitutive or merely regulative 5(3) whether they give 
a rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and pain as the 
mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the 
faculty of desire just as the Understanding prescribes 
laws a priori to the first and Reason to the second. " 3 
If this passage is read with the thought in mind that 
Kant was aiming in the third Critique to complete his 
critical investigations, one can hardly resist the conclu- 
sion that the discussion which the Critique of the aes- 
thetical Judgment contained was regarded by Kant as 
more important than the Critique of the teleological 
Judgment, since it undertakes to determine whether 
Judgment prescribes rules for Feeling just as Under- 
standing does for Cognition, and Reason for the faculty 
of Desire. It would seem, therefore, that if the main 

'R., IV, p. 4. H., V, 175. B. 4 . 
2 R., IV, 37. H.,V, 200 f. B.,37. 
3 R., IV, 2. H.,V, 174. B., 2. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 27 

object of the third Critique was to complete the critical 
investigation by finding an a priori rule for the feeling 
of pleasure, that that task was completed by the Cri- 
tique of aesthetical Judgment. It appears, further, that 
some aim other than that of merely completing his sys- 
tem moved Kant to issue the two treatises under the 
same cover. 

As a supplement to the proposition that the Critique 
of aesthetical Judgment is all that properly belongs to 
the third Critique, so far as the demand for architectonic 
unity is concerned, we derive the corollary that origin- 
ally Kant regarded the third Critique as effecting merely 
the formal, or external, connection of the earlier Cri- 
tiques as distinguished from the real or inner mediation 
to be described hereafter. The following passage from 
the letter written to Reinhold in 1787, supports the con- 
clusion that the thought of real or inner mediation had 
not at that time taken definite shape in Kant's mind, 
and that the problem and final success of discovering a 
priori principles for all the faculties of mind was then 
of most importance for him. " I now recognize," he 
writes, "three parts of Philosophy, each of which has its 
own a priori principles. We can now, therefore, se- 
curely determine the compass of knowledge, which is 
possible in this way, as including the three departments 
of Theoretical Philosophy, Teleology, and Practical 
Philosophy." 1 All along it was the thought of establish- 
ing a priori principles for the mental functions that was 
of paramount importance. Caird thus touches the secret 
of the delight which thrilled Kant at the discovery of 
the key to judgments of Taste: "Kant had begun the 
critical inquiries in the effort to separate the apparent 
from the real, the element in our ideas or knowledge 

1 H., VIII, 739, f. Caird, op. cit.. II, p. 407. 



28 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

which is peculiar to us as finite subjects whose reason 
works through sense, from that element which we ap- 
prehend in virtue of pure reason itself." Now the dis- 
covery of a priori principles for the faculty of feeling, as 
had been done previously for knowledge and desire, af- 
forded " a fresh confirmation of the truth of his fundamen- 
tal principles ".* For if he had failed to find the a priori 
element in the feeling of the beautiful, it would have 
cast a shadow of doubt over the soundness of the whole 
critical procedure ; but since a priori principles have 
been discovered for this experience, and since we may 
now securely determine the compass of knowledge ac- 
cording to such principles, we may have increased con- 
fidence in the critical procedure, its methods and results. 
Furthermore, if Kant designed the Critique of Taste to 
represent a method of uniting the different parts of his 
philosophy into a real system, or if any such purpose 
had occurred to him at the time he wrote to Reinhold 
respecting the forthcoming work, why did he not refer 
to the fact? It is highly improbable that he would 
neglect or fail to mention so important a function if it 
had then occurred to him. Still another thing that 
seems inexplicable on the theory that the Critique of 
Judgment was written expressly to mediate the opposing 
results of the earlier works is the fact that nowhere in 
the discussion of the aesthetical and teleological judg- 
ments is there any mention of ' mediation '. It seems 
incredible that Kant should have planned a work to 
unite the opposing parts of his system and still make no 
reference to his purpose in the course of the discussion. 
One naturally would expect to find an indication of the 
way in which the principle illustrated is to be applied. 
The more probable theory is that it was after Kant de- 

1 Caird., op. cit., II, pp. 409, 406. 



Changes in the Plan of the Third Critique. 29 

cided to unite the Critiques of aesthetical and teleological 
judgment under the same title, because both center 
about the notion of purposiveness, that it occurred to 
him that the third Critique would harmonize the re- 
sults of the Critiques of pure and practical Reason. 

It is proper to note at this point that the Stadler- 
Adamson argument for regarding the Critique of aes- 
thetical Judgment as the proper work of the third Cri- 
tique lays special emphasis upon the fact that Kant's 
leading purpose was to complete the system by rational- 
izing the feeling experience. Starting with this 
assumption the conclusion is inevitable that the connec- 
tion of the Critique of the teleological with the Critique 
of the aesthetical Judgment is more or less forced and 
unnatural. But when we remember that Kant's final 
and broader plan included not only the formal comple- 
tion of the critical investigation, but also proposed to 
point out a method of harmonizing the results of the 
former Critiques, the reason for combining both treatises 
under the same title is quite apparent and entirely ade- 
quate. 

The conclusion we reach from the foregoing argu- 
ment is that, in its inception, the Critique of Taste was 
designed to mediate the preceding Critiques in so far, 
and only in so far, as there was need of such an investi- 
gation to complete the work of criticism : further, that 
it was not until after the Critique of Taste had been 
finished, and probably after it had been united with the 
Critique of Teleology under the title, Critique of Judg- 
ment, that the work seemed to Kant to afford a principle 
of real, or inner, mediation between the results of the 
former Critiques. 



PART II. 

THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT AS A MEDIATING LINK 
BETWEEN KANT'S THEORETICAL AND PRAC- 
TICAL PHILOSOPHY. 

§ I. FORMAL AND REAL MEDIATION DISTINGUISHED. 

In the Preface and Introduction to the Critique of 
Judgment the work is described as a mediating link, or 
as supplying a principle of mediation, between the theo- 
retical and practical philosophy. This description, 
which is quite brief and incomplete, suggested the main 
problems of this part of our investigation ; namely, what 
doctrines of the theoretical and practical philosphy re- 
quire to be mediated ? and what meaning can we attach 
to the expression ' mediation ' when applied to the third 
Critique and the place it occupies in the critical philoso- 
phy ? 

Preliminary to these more important inquiries, it is 
necessary to distinguish the two ways in which the 
Critique of Judgment may be said to mediate the Cri- 
tiques of pure and practical philosophy. According to one 
mode of representation the mediation which the third Cri- 
tique affords is merely external and formal ; according 
to another it is inner and real. It will be necessary, in 
the first place, to make clear the distinction between for- 
mal, or external mediation and real, or inner mediation. 
Kant has reference to formal mediation when he says 
that, " since Judgment stands between Understanding 
and Reason in the family of the supreme cognitive 
faculties, and since the two latter faculties have a 
priori principles of legislation, we may judge by 



Formal and Real Mediation Distinguished. 31 

analogy that Judgment also has a special a priori prin- 
ciple of legislation." 1 It was maintained in a former sec- 
tion that the primary aim of the third Critique (the 
Critique of Taste) was to rationalize judgments about 
the beautiful ; incidentally, Kant intended to mediate 
the work of the earlier Critiques in the sense that has 
been designated above as formal. Thus, in the preface 
to the Critique of Judgment, Kant states his object to be 
" to determine whether Judgment which in the order of 
our cognitive faculties forms a mediating link between 
Understanding and Reason, has also a priori principles 
for itself, and whether they give a rule a priori to the 
feeling of pleasure and pain as the * mediating link ' 
between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire 
(just as the Understanding prescribes laws a priori to 
the first and Reason to the second.") 2 The first two Cri- 
tiques had established a priori principles for the Intel- 
lect and Will, and the idea of completeness demanded 
that a similar work be performed for the faculty of 
Feeling which, in Kant's table, stands between Intellect 
and Will. That is, the investigation of the feeling ex- 
perience, and the discovery of a priori principles for 
judgments about the beautiful would complete the work 
so far as criticism was concerned. One more passage 
may be quoted to illustrate what is meant by formal 
mediation : " Between Understanding and Reason stands 
Judgment, of which we have cause for supposing accord- 
ing to analogy that it may contain in itself, if not a 
special legislation, yet a special principle of its own to 
be sought according to laws though merely subjective 
a priori. . . . For the faculty of Knowledge the 
Understanding is alone legislative ... for the 

X R. IV, 15. H. Ill, 183. B. 14. 
2 R. IV, 2. H. Ill, 174. B. 2. 



32 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

faculty of desire, Reason is alone a priori legislative. 
Now between the faculties of knowledge and desire 
there is the feeling of pleasure just as the Judgment 
mediates between Understanding and Reason. We, 
therefore, may suppose provisionally that Judgment like- 
wise contains in itself an a priori principle." l 

It is at once apparent that mediation, as described in 
the foregoing paragraph, is merely external, or formal ; 
that is, the third Critique was designed to mediate be- 
tween the first two Critiques in the sense that it attempts 
to discover, exhibit and illustrate the principle or prin- 
ciples underlying the activity of faculties which, in 
Kant's scheme, occupy a middle ground. Judgment 
standing between Understanding and Reason supplies a 
principle for feeling which is intermediate to cognition 
and desire. In this sense, the third Critique fills a gap, 
and by so doing completes the task of discovering a 
priori principles for each of the so-called supreme cog- 
nitive faculties. 

Reasons have already been given for believing that 
when the third Critique was first planned, ' mediation ' 
meant for Kant no more than bridging the gap, in the 
manner indicated above, left by the Critiques of pure 
and practical Reason. In other words, the dominating 
purpose was not to find a principle which would unify 
and harmonize the results of the theoretical and prac- 
tical philosophy ; but it was to discover the a priori 
principle for the faculty of Feeling which recently had 
been coordinated with Intellect and Will. Kant did not 
consciously set about to unify, to mediate the opposing 
results of the two former Critiques ; it was rather 
his task to rationalise the feeling experience. But as 
the work progressed, as the third Critique became en- 

1 R. IV, 15 f. H. Ill, 183 f. B. 14 f. 



Formal and Real Mediation Distinguished. 2>Z 

larged so as to embrace not only a Critique of Taste, but 
also a Critique of teleological Judgment under the title, 
Critique of Judgment, mediation came to have a real 
and very important meaning for Kant. He began to 
see that the third Critique not only filled a gap in the 
critical investigation, but that it also revealed a method 
of harmonising the apparently contradictory results of 
the earlier Critiques. It still remains to show — and this 
is the main purpose of this investigation — what is in- 
volved in the notion of ' real mediation,' and in what 
sense the Critique of Judgment supplies such a principle. 

We have seen that Kant has reference to real media- 
tion when he attributes to Judgment the function of 
supplying a "principle of mediation between the realm 
of the concept of nature and that of the concept of free- 
dom." The same thought is elsewhere stated thus : 
" The concept of the purposiveness of nature is fit to be 
a mediating link between the realm of the natural con- 
cept and that of the concept of freedom." 1 Still another 
way of expressing the notion of real mediation is as fol- 
lows : "Judgment furnishes a concept that makes pos- 
sible the transition from conformity to law in accordance 
with the concept of nature to final purpose in accordance 
with the concept of freedom." 2 

Before inquiring at length what real mediation means 
or involves, it will be necessary to determine what mean- 
ings are conveyed by the somewhat vague and indefinite 
expressions, "realm of the concept of nature", and 
" realm of the concept of freedom ". For casual obser- 
vation shows that they are used to express any one of a 
number of things ; that their meaning varies with the 

X R. IV, 39; H. Ill, 203; B. 41. 
2 R. IV, 38 ; H. Ill, 202 ; B. 39. 
3 



34 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

context. Thus ' realm of nature ' is used to distinguish 
the phenomenal from the noumenal, the sensible from 
the supersensible, the object known from the knowing 
subject, consciousness of objects from self-consciousness, 
the world of nature in strict conformity to physical law 
from the world of spirit under the dominion of freedom, 
Understanding and its legislation from Reason and its 
legislation. The expression ' realm of freedom ' is equiv- 
alent to the second member of each of this series of 
pairs. To represent completely what Kant means by 
each of these expressions — ' realm of the natural concept ' 
and ' realm of the concept of freedom ' — would involve 
a statement of the main doctrines and conclusions of 
the Critiques of pure and practical Reason. For ' realm 
of the concept of nature ' corresponds to the domain in 
which the principles of the theoretical philosophy are 
regnant ; ' realm of the concept of freedom ' corresponds 
to the sphere in which practical Reason with its legisla- 
tion is supreme. It will be necessary, therefore, to state 
and show the mutual relations of the leading doctrines 
and results of the critiques of theoretical and practical 
philosophy. For this purpose, however, it will be suf- 
ficient to give a very general outline of the elaborate 
and intricate discussions of the two Critiques, and to 
indicate the fundamental features and results of each 
work. 

§ 2. RELATION OF THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL 
PHILOSOPHY. 

It is now proposed to represent the relation of the 
main results of the Critiques of pure and practical Reason 
in order to indicate more exactly the nature of the op- 
position, or disharmony, which the Critique of Judg- 
ment is supposed to overcome. First, with reference to 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 35 

the results of the Critique of pure Reason, it will suf- 
fice to state what seem to be its main purpose and re- 
sults when considered with reference to the main con- 
clusions of the Critique of practical Reason and the 
Critique of Judgment. Viewing Kant's system as a 
whole, it may be said that the Critique of pure Reason 
contains a doctrine of knowledge, the Critique of prac- 
tical Reason presents a theory of morals, and the Cri- 
tique of Judgment a doctrine of teleology. The main 
purpose of the Critique of pure Reason is an examination 
of. the mind as an organ of knowledge, and its prob- 
lem is to indicate the factor or factors which the mind 
supplies in the complex of experience called the objec- 
tive world ; it is " a determination of the a priori prin- 
ciples of the faculty of cognition with reference to 
their conditions, extent, and the limits of their use." l 
Accordingly, we have presented, as Kant conceived it, 
a description of how the known world is built up from 
sense impressions, the forms of space and time, and the 
concepts of Understanding. Kant starts with the fact of 
experience, and exhibits the factors and conditions by 
which we come to have what we call a knowledge of 
the world. Thus regarded, the Critique of pure Reason 
is essentially and primarily a presentation of a theory of 
knowledge. It considers man as a cognitive being, and 
explains the origin, presuppositions and limits of knowl- 
edge. 

But this seems to be a partial and inadequate view of 
man's nature ; it disregards an important side or factor 
of his life, viz., the volitional side. Man is a being that 
wills, that has purposes, and ideals, and strives to realize 
them. He not only knows but wills. Especially is it 

1 R., VIII, 115 ; H., V, 11 f. Abbott, Kant's Theory 0/ Ethics, 4th 
ed., p. 97. 



36 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

to be noted that a philosophy which is limited to man's 
cognitive nature leaves out of account the fact that he is 
a moral being with moral ends to fulfill. Not only is 
this mode of representation one-sided and incomplete, but 
it is seen that if the principles, rules, and axioms which 
are valid in the phenomenal, material world, are ex- 
tended and given universal application, they threaten to 
undermine the foundations of the moral and religious 
life. This danger exists particularly with reference to 
the unchecked extension of the principle of causality, 
according to which every event must have another pre- 
ceding event as its cause. The law of causality demands 
that every change shall result from or depend upon an 
antecedent change. This is the view that we are com- 
pelled to take, if we look at the world from the standpoint 
of cognition ; we are bound to follow the category of 
causality, and, therefore, to regard every phenomenon as 
determined by a preceding phenomenon. The world 
then presents the scene of an endless series of events 
each of which is caused by the one preceding it. The 
changes which man is thought to effect in the world are 
no exception to this rule. Man, as a member of the 
phenomenal world, is subject to its laws, is impelled by 
its forces, is carried along like a material thing by the 
irresistible course of events. 

Now this manner of extending the use of the notion 
of causality seemed to Kant to exclude all moral action 
and to render moral legislation futile. For, as will be 
remembered, according to Kant's way of conceiving the 
matter, man's actions, so far as they are incited by in- 
fluences from the phenomenal world, are non-moral. 
Man's conduct, so far as it is determined by sensuous 
motives of pleasure and pain, has no moral worth what- 
ever. Hence, the possibility of morality is dependent 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 37 

upon the possibility of establishing a ground of activity 
for man's will free from all sensuous motives. There 
thus arises the necessity of inquiring whether there is a 
determination of Will independent of influences from the 
sensible world. The first and most important task of 
practical philosophy is, therefore, " to determine whether 
pure reason of itself alone suffices to determine the Will, 
or whether it can be a ground of determination only on 
empirical conditions." x The Critique of Practical Rea- 
son inquires whether man has the power of free self-deter- 
mination in accordance with moral maxims which are 
self-derived and self-imposed. Kant is thus seen to have a 
double purpose in view ; viz., to establish freedom, and 
also to displace the hedonistic ethical doctrines of his 
time. " To this Eudaemonism which was destitute of 
stability and consistency, and which left the door and 
gate wide open for every whim and caprice, Kant op- 
posed the Practical Reason and thus emphasized the 
need for a principle of Will which should be universal 
and lay the same obligation on all." 2 The vindication 
of freedom involved the establishment of principles of 
legislation for the moral activities of the Will inde- 
pendent of all reference to pleasure-pain motives, and 
the proof that reason legislates a priori for Will is at 
the same time the proof of freedom. 

X R., VIII, 119 ; H., V., 15. Abbott, op. tit., 101. 

2 Hegel, Werke, VI, p. 115. Wallace, Trans, of Logic, p. 111. 

Note. — Hegel's use of the word ' Kudaemonismus ' to indicate 
the doctrines against which Kant ' opposed the practical rea- 
son' is not altogether happy. The word ' hedonism ' describes more 
accurately the kind of ethical teaching against which Kant was pro- 
testing. For the word evBatixovta as used by Plato, Aristotle and the 
Stoics included not only the well-being of the sentient-self (Hedon- 
ism), but also the well-being of the rational self. For full discussion 
of the distinction between Hedonism and Eudaemonism, see Professor 
J. Seth's Study of Ethical Principles, Part I. 



38 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

We shall now have to set forth Kant's method of 
establishing the postulate of freedom. Briefly put, 
the ground of the belief in freedom — the ratio cogno- 
scendi — is the consciousness of the "ought", the feeling 
of moral obligation, the sense of duty to which every 
one feels himself subject. The fact that we feel that we 
ought to do certain things and refrain from doing others 
proves that we can. u Thou oughtst, therefore, thou 
canst." Otherwise, we should not understand the sense 
of duty which every one experiences ; it would be im- 
possible to understand the force and absoluteness of the 
decrees of practical Reason without supposing that man 
is free to comply with them. Since conscience issues 
unconditional commands for the performance of certain 
actions and forbids the performance of others, we must 
believe that man is free to obey its dictates. Thus free- 
dom, which had no standing in the theoretical Phil- 
osophy, is established for practical Philosophy by the 
consciousness of duty. 

But it is not enough to show that the Will is free to 
act according to the dictates of self-derived rules, to prove 
that Reason is the sole determining principle of the 
moral will ; it must be possible for the principles of Rea- 
son to find objecti vation. u Reason first becomes practi- 
cal in the true sense of the word when it insists upon 
the good being manifested in the world with an outward 
objectivity. " l That is, when the Will,, which recognizes 
the obligation of the moral law, seeks to give that law 
objective realization. Kant was not content to confine 
the legislation of Reason to a mere formal determination 
of the Will which would leave it unrelated and incapa- 
ble of being related to the concrete actions of man. 
Reason must have an object to realize — an object the 

1 Hegel, Werke, VI, p. 115. Wallace, Trans, of Logic, p. no. 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 39 

realization of which forms for Kant the summum 
bonum} And while Kant would not admit that the 
need of realizing the highest good can become a ground 
of determination for the Will — for the basis of that obli- 
gation is wholly subjective — yet the chief good is the 
necessary object of a Will practically determined. 

But an obstacle to the attainment of the summum bo- 
num arises from the fact that man's conduct is not wholly 
guided by the law of reason ; he is a member of the sen- 
sible world and, as such, is ever open to influences from 
that world ; and so long as his actions are partially em- 
pirically determined he is ipso facto incapable of attain- 
ing the fundamental element of the chief good — holiness. 
" The perfect accordance of the Will with the moral law 
is holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the 
sensible world is capable at any moment of his exist- 
ence. " 2 Kant gets over this difficulty by the thought 
of a progress in infinitum in which there is an increas- 
ing harmony between the empirical and rational deter- 
minations of will. "It is only in an endless progress 
that we can attain perfect accordance with the moral 
law. " 3 An endless process of culture and discipline is 
required to reach a state of holiness. " This endless 
progress is possible only on the supposition of an endless 
duration of the existence and personality of the same ra- 

1 Note. The summum bonum in Kant's Ethics is the union of per- 
fect virtue and perfect happiness. One who has attained a state of 
perfect virtue combined with perfect happiness has achieved the high- 
est good. Kant did not dissociate holiness and happiness and regard 
one as the chief good, the other as a means to that good, as had been 
the custom of moralists from the beginning of speculation upon the 
subject of the summum bonum. Neither of these factors is the cause 
or ground of the other, for the notion of the highest good includes 
both. 

* R., VIII, 261 ; H., V, 128. Abbott, op. cit, 218. 

3 R., VIII, p. 262 ; H., V, 128. Abbott, op. cit., 219. 



4-0 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

tional being ( which is called immortality of the soul ). " * 
Kant thus overcame the difficulty resulting from an an- 
tagonism between the sensuous and rational motives to 
action by supposing that in an infinite series of steps the 
two kinds of motives will be brought into accord. The 
possibility of this infinite progress depends upon the 
continued existence of the soul, immortality. 

We saw above ( note p. 39) that the moral law leads 
us to affirm the possibility of the second element of the 
siimmum bonum, viz., happiness proportioned to virtue. 
Although happiness is never a motive to virtuous con- 
duct ( for then the conduct would cease to be moral since 
the sole spring of moral conduct is reverence for the mo- 
ral law ), it must be conceived as always attending it. 
But it would be far from the truth to assert that happi- 
ness does in all cases accompany virtuous acting ; on the 
contrary, we observe that very many noble deeds are in- 
evitably accompanied by suffering. There is no neces- 
sary connection between goodness and happiness so far 
as we can see. " Good and evil fortunes fall to the lot 
of pious and impious alike." Happiness is defined 
as " the condition of a rational being in the world 
with whom everything goes according to his wish and 
will. " But since man is not the cause of the world, 
and is not able to bring it into harmony with his practi- 
cal principles, we must postulate the existence of a Be- 
ing who will bring about this harmony. To insure the 
realization of the second element of the summum bonum, 
happiness, we postulate the existence of a Power or Be- 
ing great enough to bring into accord the world and 
man's moral character. Not only must such a Being 
have sufficient power, but he must also have the disposi- 
tion to effect this harmony. " The summum bonum is 

1 R., VIII, 262 ; H., V, 128. Abbott, op. cit.\ 218. 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 41 

possible in the world only on the supposition of a Supreme 
Being having a causality corresponding to moral charac- 
ter. " 1 We assume that the same power which impels 
man to moral conduct is the same power which lies at the 
basis of nature, and will ultimately bring nature into ac- 
cord with man's reason thus insuring his happiness. Such 
a power is God. To sum up the foregoing — the con- 
sciousness of the " ought ", the consciousness of being de- 
termined by the moral law leads us to postulate freedom 
as the first condition of obedience to that law ; secondly, 
the complete fulfillment of the moral law, the attainment 
of perfect virtue requires an eternity of existence, immor- 
tality, for the same rational being. In the third place, 
the demand that happiness shall be proportionate 
to goodness leads us to postulate the existence of a " Be- 
ing distinct from nature itself and containing the prin- 
ciple of connexion between happiness and goodness. " 2 
Upon these three Ideas — God, Freedom, and Immortal- 
ity — Ideas, which in the Critique of theoretical Reason 
had been declared incapable of demonstration, Kant con- 
structed his ethical and religious systems. 

Although the opposition between the Critiques of 
theoretical and practical philosophy extends to all of 
these ideas, it arises primarily and chiefly with reference 
to the concept of Freedom — ' the fundamental concept 
of all unconditioned practical laws ' — the corner-stone of 
Kant's ethical system. Theoretical Reason declares that 
every event in the world is connected according to the 
law of cause and effect, that there is only an endless 
chain of physical events each of which is determined 
by the one preceding it. Practical Reason claims for 
man exemption from this mechanically fixed order of 

1 R, VIII, 264 ; H., V. 130 f. Abbott, op. cit., 221 f. 

2 R., VIII, 264 ; H., V, 130. Abbott, op. cit., 221. 



42 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

things, and endows him with the power of free, spon- 
taneous origination, independent of external, physical 
influences. Practical Reason is impelled and guided by 
an ' ought ' which theoretical Reason brushes aside as 
hollow and meaningless. " Our Understanding can 
know nothing of a natural world except what is ) what 
has been, or what will be. ' Ought ' has no meaning 
whatever in nature. We cannot inquire what ought to 
happen in nature, any more than we can inquire what 
properties a circle ought to have. The * ought ' ex- 
presses a possible action, the ground of which cannot be 
anything but a mere concept ; while in every merely 
natural action the ground must always be a phenome- 
non." 1 It is clear, therefore, that the opposition between 
the first two Critiques centers about the conflict between 
the principles of freedom and necessity ; viewed broadly 
it is the opposition between the teleological and mechan- 
ical views of the world. In its narrower form the ques- 
tion is, can there be a causality of concepts, — in the 
present case of moral concepts — or must all causes 
be conceived as material? The latter view domin- 
ated the scientific thought of Kant's time, as it does 
that of the present. The principles of physical science 
are employed not only in determining the world 
of matter, but are extended to the world of spirit as well. 
Physics can find no place for freedom, and declares our 
experience of it to be a delusion. The scientific position 
is well expressed in Spinoza's famous saying, l that a 
stone and a human being are equally determined to 
exist and operate in a fixed and determinate manner,' 
the only difference being that the actions of man are 
accompanied by consciousness. " But that Reason has a 
causality, or at least that we represent it as having such 
1 R. II, 429 ; H. in, 379 ; M. 11, 472. 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 43 

a causality, is clear from the imperatives which in all 
our practical life we impose as rules upon our executive 
powers. The ought expresses a kind of necessity, a kind 
of connection of actions with their grounds or reasons 
such as is to be found nowhere else in nature." * 

The relation of the Critiques of pure and practical 
philosophy with reference to the problem of freedom 
may be further illustrated by considering two different 
relations in which man stands to the physical world. 
First, he may be thought as merely one object among 
an infinitude of other objects, as one atom in a sea of 
atoms. As such, he is subject to the same influences, is 
played upon and controlled by the same forces as any 
other object in nature. All the laws which are applica- 
ble to the physical world are applicable to him as a 
member of that world. He is regarded, like other ob- 
jects of the phenomenal world, according to the laws of 
nature and necessity. All his states and changes are 
determined by his relation to other objects. Conceived 
as merely phenomenal, man is only a link in an endless 
chain of events which constitutes the physical series. 

But to restrict ourselves to this one relation or view 
would be partial and inadequate. Reflection suggests 
another important relation in which man stands to the 
world of objects. In addition to his consciousness of 
himself as a phenomenon, as one object among other 
objects, man is also conscious of himself as entirely 
separated from and above the world of objects, out of the 
natural order of things, a supersensible or intelligible 
being, a noumenon. He feels himself to be free and in- 
dependent of the phenomenal world, acting with perfect 
spontaneity according to laws of his own being. Accord- 
ing to this latter view, man is independent of the affec- 

1 R. ii, 429 ; H. Ill, 379 ; M. II, 472. 



44 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

tions of sense, and apart from the empirically condi- 
tioned ; he is a purely intelligible being and so in virtue 
of the practical Reason, " which is properly and pre- 
eminently distinct from all empirically conditioned 
powers in virtue of a free will which acts from motives 
entirely self-derived, not on motives excited by external 
objects." 

We have seen that the activities of man, regarded as 
a phenomenon, result from external influences ; but 
man regarded as a noumenon is under no influence ex- 
cept the demands of Reason, or the moral law prescribed 
by Reason. He finds the springs of his activity wholly 
within his rational nature unmixed with any external 
motives whatever. All his actions as a rational being 
spring from, and are guided by, self-derived and self-im- 
posed laws of Reason. This manner of conceiving 
man's relation to the sensible world brings into promi- 
nence Kant's distinction between the noumenal and phe- 
nomenal world, between the intelligible and empirical 
self. As a member of the phenomenal world, man's 
will is subject to natural necessity ; as a member of the 
noumenal world, his will is under the law of freedom. 
Freedom is thus saved by postulating beyond the phe- 
nomenal world a noumenal or supersensible world. It is 
impossible to determine this noumenal world in any 
way whatever, but so long as we are compelled to 
think it, so long as we believe in its existence, so 
long are we justified in refusing to admit the uni- 
versal applicability of the principles of physical 
science, especially may we justly exclude them from the 
province of the supersensible. Here the Reason lays 
claim to absolute dominion ; into this territory it retreats 
and finds security. " We are not on sufferance in our 
possession, when, though our own title may not be suffi- 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 45 

cient, it is nevertheless quite certain that no one can 
ever prove its insufficiency." ! Freedom thus protects 
herself against the attacks of science by withdrawing 
from the phenomenal plane and taking refuge in a 
stronghold where science cannot follow. The importance 
of this defense for Kant is thus stated by Caird : " It 
protects the moral and religious life from the danger of 
being considered illusory on one special ground, viz., 
that it and its objects cannot be brought within the cir- 
cle of ordinary experience and ordinary science, or de- 
termined by the categories that hold good there." 2 

But this method of protecting freedom seems to render 
it utterly useless. The conception of man as a noume- 
non seems entirely to exclude him from all relation to, 
or connection with the world of experience ; it places 
him upon an entirely different plane wholly unrelated 
to the phenomenal. But if man's freedom is to mean 
anything, if moral purposes are to be more than idle 
dreams, the concepts of morality must be capable of act- 
ualization in the phenomenal world. Freedom, if it is 
worth anything, must be able to exert an influence upon 
the course of events, it must be a cause in the world of 
nature, it must be able to mould the objects of nature 
with reference to the ends of freedom. If freedom is to 
be saved from the hollowness which threatens it, the 
world must be determinable in conformity to the laws 
of practical Reason. 

It is thus seen that in Kant's ethics there is a constant 
struggle between the necessity of preserving the purity 
of the determining principles of moral activity, and the 
demand that in so doing the moral law shall not be de- 
graded into a barren, abstract, contentless non-entity. 

1 R., II, 572 ; H., Ill, 493 ; M., II, 634. 

2 Caird, Crit. Phil, of Kant, II, p. 157. 



46 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

There is no direct evidence that Kant was fully aware 
of these conflicting tendencies of his system ; but when 
we remember the prominent place which the summum 
bonum occupies in his system, when we remember " that 
the promotion of the summum bonum is a priori a 
necessary object of our will and inseparably attached to 
the moral law," we are led to think that Kant realized 
the absurdity of demanding obedience to the law solely 
for the law's sake. Man, as a rational being, cannot act 
without motives, and the bare law in itself affords no 
motive. We may suppose, therefore, that Kant was 
alive to the danger of depriving the notion of free- 
dom of all worth, of emptying the moral law of all 
content. Accordingly he made partial provision against 
the hollowness and abstractness which threatened his 
conception of freedom and the " ought " by reference to 
the notion of the summum bonum as " the necessary ob- 
ject of a Will determinable by the moral law." Still, 
Kant never wavered in his insistence upon the doctrine 
that the summum bonum can never be regarded as a mo- 
tive to virtuous conduct ; for that motive is always 
grounded in the pure reason. And although Kant urges 
us to think the summum bonum as the proper object of 
a Will acting under the moral law, one still feels that 
he could have made more adequate provision against the 
danger of abstractness which hampers his doctrine by 
bringing the idea of the summum bonum into more im- 
mediate relation to the concrete life of man. 

In summing up the results of the present section it 
may be said that the function of the Critique of Pure 
Reason is to explain experience, to discover and confirm 
the principles, rules and presuppositions of physical 
science ; the purpose of the Critique of Practical Rea- 
son is to exhibit the a priori rules of practical Reason, 



Relation of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. 47 

to discover and confirm the maxims and postulates of 
morals and religion. The doctrines enunciated and the 
principles established in the two Critiques if not an- 
tagonistic are at least inconsistent, or rather wholly dis- 
parate and incommensurable. Kant's own statement 
brings out very clearly the province or function of each 
Critique, and, at the same, the contradictory character 
of the principles which they elaborate : — " The Under- 
standing legislates a priori for nature as an object of 
sense : Reason legislates a priori for freedom and its 
peculiar causality. The realm of the natural concept 
under the one legislation, and that of the concept of free- 
dom under the other are entirely removed from all 
mutual influence. The concept of freedom determines 
nothing in respect of the theoretical cognition of nature ; 
and the natural concept determines nothing in respect 
of the practical laws of freedom. So far then it is not 
possible to throw a bridge from the one realm to the 
other." l Legislation by the Understanding is valid 
only for cognition ; legislation by Reason is valid only 
for the Will. The province of the one is nature ; the 
province of the other is the moral and religious life. 
There can be no mutual influence between the two 
realms, there must be no encroachment by either upon 
the domain of the other. On the one side, we see 
physical science asserting, in accordance with the prin- 
ciples of the understanding, that every event must come 
under the inexorable law of physical causality, that 
every phenomenal effect can have only a physical cause. 
Even the actions of man are no exception to the uni- 
versality and necessity of the law of causality. On the 
other hand, it is maintained that c man is possessed of an 
active and spontaneously energizing faculty ', that he 

a R.,IV, 36, f.^ H.,V, 201; B., 38. 



48 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

has a causality which is free and independent of the 
physical world. " Reason frames for itself with perfect 
spontaneity a new order of things according to ideas. '•' 
That is, man conceives and realizes moral ideals inde- 
pendently of external influences. Kant continues, " Now 
although an immeasurable gulf is thus placed between the 
realm of nature and the realm of freedom so that no tran- 
sition from the first to the second is possible, yet the second 
is meant to have an influence upon the first. The concept 
of freedom is meant to realize in the world of sense the 
purpose proposed by its laws, and consequently nature 
must be so thought that the conformity to law of its 
form, at least harmonizes with the possibilities of the 
purposes to be effected in it according to the laws of 
freedom. " l The relation of the notions of nature and 
freedom, and so of the Critiques of pure and practical 
Reason, which deal respectively with those ideas, is ad- 
mirably stated by Bosanquet in a passage which, at the 
same time, indicates the function of the Critique of Judg- 
ment in the Critical Philosophy : "In his life-long labor 
for the reorganization of philosophy, Kant may be said to 
have aimed at three cardinal points. First, he desired to 
justify the conception of a natural order ; secondly, the 
conception of a moral order ; thirdly, the conception of 
compatibility between the natural and the moral order. 
The first of these problems formed the substance of the 
Critique of pure Reason ; the second was treated in the 
Critique of practical Reason ; the third necessarily arose 
out of the relation between the other two. . . . And 
although the formal compatibility of nature and rea- 
son had been established by Kant, as he believed, in 
the negative demarcation between them which the first 

1 R, IV, 14; H., V, 182; B. 12. 



Kanfs Theory of the Beautiful. 49 

two Critiques expounded, it was inevitable that he should 
subsequently be led on to suggest some more positive 
conciliation. This attempt was made in the Critique of 
the Power of Judgment. " 1 Kant finds the key to the 
' more positive conciliation ' between the law and order 
of the natural world, and the principles dominating the 
realm of morals, in the thought of a " ground of unity " 
underlying both nature and freedom. His words are : 
" There must be a ground of the unity of the supersensi- 
ble which lies at the basis of nature with that which the 
concept of freedom practically contains. " 2 The same 
force or power manifest in and through the natural or 
material world must be thought as having the same 
character, the same ultimate purpose, as that force which 
expresses itself in the will of man acting under the moral 
law. The law and necessity prevailing in the physical 
world must spring, according to the sentence quoted, 
from the same ground which underlies the determination 
of the Will in accordance with the laws of freedom. It 
now remains to consider the evidence for the existence 
of this ' ground of unity ' which Kant has collected in 
the Critique of Judgment, and, also, the way in which 
this principle can be used to complete the results of the 
first two Critiques. 

§ 3. KANT'S THEORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

In Part I, reasons were assigned for believing that 
when Kant began the investigation of judgments con- 
cerning the Beautiful his main purpose was to ration- 
alize those judgments, to put them upon a firm, reasoned 
foundation by exhibiting the a priori element which 
underlies them. The Critiques of pure and practical 

1 Bosanquet, History of Aesthetics, p. 256 f. 

2 R., IV, 14. H., V, 182. B.,12. 

4 



50 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

reason had established a priori principles for cognition 
and desire, and if a like work could be performed for 
feeling, which stands between those two faculties, 
the system would be complete, each part would stand 
upon a fully formulated basis of a priori truth. It was 
also explained how Kant came to regard purposiveness 
as the principle underlying the activity of the reflective 
Judgment ; also how, in the course of his reflections, it 
occurred to him that the principle of purposiveness, 
which is the principle of the reflective Judgment, afforded 
a means of real mediation between the theoretical and 
the practical philosophy. But there is no attempt to ap- 
ply the principle, or to illustrate what is meant by the 
statement that ' Judgment supplies a mediating principle 
between the concepts of freedom and nature.' It is use- 
less to conjecture why Kant failed to perform this im- 
portant work, why he failed to show how the results of 
the Critique of Judgment mediate in a real sense the 
results of the earlier Critiques. We have the bare state- 
ment that purposiveness, the principle which the re- 
flective Judgment employs, affords a means of transition 
from freedom to nature, and with that statement the 
matter is dismissed. 

Our aim, in the remaining sections of this essay, 
will be to follow out Kant's hint by showing how 
the Critique of Judgment, with its fundamental con- 
cept of purposiveness, mediates, or affords a principle 
of mediation, in a real sense between the Critiques of 
theoretical and practical philosophy. It will be re- 
membered that the Critique of theoretical philoso- 
phy has to do with the realm of nature, while the Cri- 
tique of practical philosophy has to do with the realm of 
freedom. Purposiveness, therefore, is conceived as 
bridging the chasm between these two realms, or to use 
less metaphorical language, the notion of design brings 



KanPs Theory of the Beautiful. 51 

into closer relation the modes of thought prevailing in 
the theoretical and practical domains. Broadly speak- 
ing, the consideration of the third Critique as a means 
of combining the results of the earlier Critiques resolves 
itself into a consideration of the evidence adduced in 
that Critique in support of the theory that there is pur- 
pose in nature. But it must not be inferred from this 
statement that Kant started with the hypothesis that 
nature is purposive and went in search of facts to sup- 
port this hypothesis. For his method was quite the re- 
verse of this. Certain phenomena which attracted his 
attention seemed inexplicable except by supposing that 
they were the result of design. They resisted the 
ordinary methods of explanation and called for a new 
category ; that category Kant called purposiveness. 

It may be well at this point to anticipate an inquiry 
that properly belongs in a later connection, and ask 
what is involved in the notion of purpose ? What do we 
mean by saying that a thing is purposive, and what does 
it imply ? In the first place, the notion of purpose implies 
an Intelligence which forms plans v &nd has the power to 
execute them. It implies freedom, a ' thinking Will.' 
Briefly put, therefore, the Critique ofjttdgment contains 
a description and analysis of the phenomena which com- 
pel us to believe that there is a ' thinking Will ' behind 
the world. And this point of view is forced upon us when 
we are dealing with the Beautiful and with the forms 
of organic nature. Since these objects require us to 
think that purpose is the ground of their existence, they 
contain in themselves a union of freedom and nature ; 
the purposiveness which they exhibit, or suggest, 
implies the presence of a force acting freely. Beautiful 
objects and organic products as members of the realm of 
nature are at the same time the embodiments of con- 



52 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

cepts of freedom. In them we find examples of the con- 
crete union, or blending, of the notions of free- 
dom and nature. In other words, the Beautiful and the 
Organic are examples of ' concrete Ideas ;' they are 
realized ideals. 

Having explained briefly what is implied in the idea 
of purpose, let us return to the consideration of the no- 
tion of purposiveness as a means of uniting the parts of 
the Critical Philosophy. It was stated in the preceding 
paragraph, that in the Critique of Judgment, Kant gives 
an explanation of the beautiful and the organic, and 
that the key to the explanation of those phenomena is 
found in the notion of purposiveness. These objects are 
explained by the idea of design ; at the same time, we 
get an insight into the content of that idea by examin- 
ing beautiful objects and the phenomena of organic 
nature. It will be necessary, therefore, in order to 
understand how the idea of design, or purposiveness 
mediates the results of the first two Critiques, to present 
Kant's theory of the Beautiful and the Organic. It 
will be most convenient to set forth his theory of each 
of these classes of phenomena separately ; also to con- 
sider them separately with reference to the doctrine of 
mediation. 

( i ) The theory of the beautiful. In undertaking 
the criticism of aesthetic judgments, Kant had first to 
justify his subject-matter by calling attention to the fact 
that objects may be judged not only logically, but 
also aesthetically. Accordingly, we find in the opening 
sentence of section VII of the Introduction ( which con- 
tains an epitome of the involved and elaborate analysis 
presented in the Critique of the aesthetical Judgment ) 
a statement of the difference between these two classes 
of judgment. " Every object of sense may be judged 



Kanfs Theory of the Beautiful. 53 

both aesthetically and logically, i. e., we may judge it 
logically with reference to its relation to other objects ; 
we may also judge it aesthetically with reference to the 
pleasure or pain experienced by the person apprehending 
it. " That is, accompanying the mere cognition of every 
object, there is an affective experience which may be 
either pleasurable or painful. By drawing this distinc- 
tion Kant prepares the way for his discussion of the ex- 
perience of the beautiful. His purpose is to call to mind 
a class of judgments which are distinctly judgments 
about the aesthetic character of objects. If we leave 
out of account the experience of the painful, and consider 
only the pleasurable, in this case the beautiful expe- 
rience, the account would run as follows : There is bound 
up with the cognition of certain objects of nature and of 
art a pleasurable feeling which cannot be an element of 
cognition. In addition to our knowledge of these objects, 
we have a consciousness of the harmony of their repre- 
sentations with the conditions of knowledge in general, 
a feeling of pleasure in the more lively play of the men- 
tal powers which the idea of the object produces. This 
pleasure is not an element, but a mere accompaniment 
of the cognition of such objects. To apprehend an ob- 
ject is quite different from being conscious of the feeling 
of pleasure aroused by and attendant upon that appre- 
hension. This pleasurable feeling, we are told, is the re- 
sult of the mutual subjective harmony of the cognitive 
faculties — Imagination and Understanding — in the cog- 
nition of an object. It is a feeling occasioned by a har- 
monious, or accordant activity of the imagination in its 
freedom with the understanding in its conformity to law. 
Certain objects of nature or of art produce this harmony 
of the cognitive faculties which contains the ground of 



54 Teleology in KanVs Critical Philosophy. 

this pleasure. 1 The representations of these objects are 
adapted to throw the faculties of imagination and under- 
standing into accord — such objects are said to be Beauti- 
ful. 

So far, Kant's analysis of judgments of beauty does not 
enable us to distinguish that class of judgments from two 
other classes, viz., judgments of the Pleasant and the 
Good. Yet, as will be seen later, it is of the highest 
importance for Kant that he should keep the experience 
of the beautiful entirely distinct and separate from that 
of the pleasant and the good. The first step in making 
clear this distinction is to refer aesthetical judgments to 
a special faculty — the faculty of Taste. 2 It then becomes 
necessary to analyze judgments of taste in order to show 
what is required to warrant us in calling an object beau- 
tiful as distinguished from the pleasant and the good. 
Kant has a double purpose in this analysis : first, he 
wishes to indicate the characteristics of the beautiful 
and point out its prominent features ; and secondly, he 
wished at the same time to show how it differs from 
these other forms of experience. Accordingly, we 
find the analysis and description of the beautiful running 
parallel to the process of differentiating the beautiful from 
the good and the pleasant. 

While it is true that the two purposes are coordinate, 
it seems certain that Kant's one great aim was to re- 
move every possibility of confusing the beautiful with 
either the pleasant or the good, to win for it a definite 
field of experience of which it is the sole occupant. One 
often suspects that the desire to make rigid this dis- 
tinction was paramount to the desire to determine the 
nature of the Beautiful, that the former motive deter- 

1 R., IV, 39. H., V, 203. B., 40, 64, 66, 67, 69. 
2 R., IV, 45. H., V, 207. B., 45 note. 



Kanfs Theory of the Beautiful. 55 

mined the moments or characteristics of beauty rather 
than the analysis resulting in the conviction that the 
beautiful experience has a peculiar nature. But in truth 
the one process involves the other. The process of 
analysis involves a characterization of the Beautiful 
which, at the same time, marks it off from the pleasant 
and the good. The work of distinguishing the aesthetic 
from every other experience involves also the work of 
indicating its peculiar qualities. 

Keeping in mind then that Kant has a two-fold pur- 
pose before him, let us proceed to a statement of his 
execution of it. Facility of presentation will be gained 
by adhering somewhat closely to Kant's order of pro- 
cedure, artificial though it is. 1 His analysis may be fol- 
lowed with advantage though it is violently and un- 
naturally made to conform to the convenient but rigid, 
mechanical framework of the Categories of Quality, 
Quantity, Relation, and Modality. Under each of these 
categories one finds a description of one of the essential 
qualities or characteristics of aesthetic judgment. One 
finds also under each category a feature pointed out 
which helps to distinguish the beautiful from the 
pleasant and the good. 

(a) Quality of aesthetic Judgments, It was seen in a 
preceding paragraph that the judgment of taste is an 
aesthetical, and not a logical judgment, because it has 
reference, not to the relations of objects to one another, 
but to the relations of the object to the subject's feeling 

1 The artificial character of Kant's divisions is perhaps more clearly 
seen in the Critique of Judgment than in any of his other works. 
He seemed to feel that there was something peculiarly significant in 
the plan of the first Critique, and took especial pains to make the 
Critiques of Practical Reason and Judgment correspond in every way 
to it. The influence of this tendency has been well explained and 
illustrated by B. Adickes : KanVs Systematic als system — bildender 
Factor. 



56 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

of pleasure and pain. It must also be disinterested to 
distinguish it from the pleasant on the one hand, and 
from the good on the other. For when we pronounce 
an object ' pleasant ' we express an interest in its exist- 
ence ; we desire the object, or that it shall continue to 
exist. " Hence we do not merely say of the pleasant, it 
pleases, but it gratifies. We give to it no mere assent, but 
inclination is aroused by it." x The pleasant has a refer- 
ence to the faculty of desire ; the satisfaction it brings is 
sensuously conditioned : but the judgment of taste is 
merely contemplative ; it is a judgment which, indiffer- 
ent as regards the existence of the object, compares its 
character with the feeling of pleasure and pain. 2 The 
mere representation of a beautiful object, apart altogether 
from any inclination towards it, is accompanied by a 
feeling of satisfaction. 

It is equally necessary to distinguish the beautiful 
from the good. The good is whatever pleases us by 
means of Reason through the mere concept. It pleases 
because it is the realization of an idea or plan. We 
must always know what sort of thing the object ought 
to be before we can determine whether or not it is good. 
But this implies an interest in the existence of the ob- 
ject, and thus conflicts with the doctrine that judgments 
of taste are wholly disinterested. An aesthetic judgment 
does not imply any interest in the existence of the 
object, but is based solely upon its fitness to produce a 
pleasurable feeling by its mere form. Thus it is seen 
that judgments of the pleasant and the good agree in 
the fact that both are always bound up with an interest 
in their object. Both have reference to the faculty of 
desire, and bring with them a satisfaction which is de- 

1 R., IV, 49. H., V, 210 B., 50. 
2 R., IV, 53- H.,V, 213. B.,53- 



Kant's Theory of the Beautiful. 57 

termined not merely by the representation of the object, 
but also by the represented connection of the subject 
with the existence of the object. 1 The feeling of beauty, 
on the other hand, leaves the mind entirely free and dis- 
interested as regards the existence of the object ; no in- 
terest either of sense, or of reason, impels us to judge a 
thing beautiful. The mind is content to rest in a state 
of mere contemplation. 

(b) Quantity of aesthetic judgments. We saw in the 
preceding paragraphs that the satisfaction one feels in 
the beautiful object is wholly disinterested ; it may be 
supposed, therefore, to be grounded on conditions com- 
mon to all men. Since the subject, in judging a thing 
as beautiful, believes himself to be quite free as regards 
the satisfaction which he attaches to the object, he con- 
cludes that his satisfaction is not based on conditions 
peculiar to himself. He, therefore, regards his judgment 
as grounded on what he can presuppose as existing in 
every other person's mind. Consequently, he assumes 
that every one will find a similar satisfaction in the ob- 
ject he calls beautiful. He ascribes the characteristic 
' beauty ' to the object in the same way that he makes a 
logical judgment concerning it. In other words, we 
assume that the relation of the cognitive faculties suita- 
ble for cognition in general is the same in all persons, 
and that if we find that the apprehension of a given object 
throws our mind, or mental powers, into a harmonious 
state, we assume that the same object will produce the 
same effect in every other person's mind. 

This quality of universality which judgments of taste 
are supposed to possess affords Kant another means of 
distinguishing those judgments from judgments of the 
pleasant and the good, or perfect. It is said with refer- 

! R, IV, 52. H.,V, 213. B., 52, f. 



58 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

ence to tlie pleasant, that every one is content that his 
judgment should be merely individual ; that the funda- 
mental proposition as regards the pleasant is, ' every one 
has his own taste ' ; whereas, judgments of the beautiful 
are thought to have universal validity. That is, when a 
person pronounces an object beautiful, he assumes that 
all other persons will give their assent to his judgment. 
With respect to judgments of perfection, it is true that 
they claim universality ; " but these judgments are 
based upon concepts of objects of universal satis- 
faction, and thus are different from judgments of 
the beautiful which do not rest upon concepts but 
upon a subjective relation of the cognitive powers." l 
•(c) Relation of the judgment of taste. Under the 
category of relation, Kant explains the doctrine that in 
the aesthetic judgment there is implied the notion of 
" purposiveness zvithout purpose" We think purpose 
when not only the cognition of an object, but the ob- 
ject itself (its form and existence) is thought as an effect 
possible only by means of a purpose. 2 But we also pre- 
suppose the representation of purpose when the possi- 
bility of an object, or state of mind can be explained 
only by assuming as its ground a causality according to 
purposes. In this latter case, we have k purposiveness 
without purpose,' so far as we do not refer the object or 
state of mind directly to a Will, although we can make 
it intelligible only by driving it from a Will. 3 Now we 
have seen that judgments of taste cannot be based upon 
concepts of purposes either internal or external. They 
cannot be based upon the adaptation of objects to excite 
a feeling of pleasure, because in that case the judgment 

1 R., IV, 58. H., V, 217. B., 58. 

2 R, IV, 66. H., V, 224. B., 67. 
S R., IV, 67. H., V, 225. B., 68. 



Kanfs Theory of the Beautiful. 59 

would carry with it an interest. Nor is it possible to 
base it upon the concept of an external purpose, for we 
do not call an object beautiful because it realizes a plan. 
To judge an object beautiful goes no further than to 
assert its fitness to produce a harmonious working of the 
cognitive faculties in apprehending it. The judgment 
of taste expresses a relation of purposiveness or adapta- 
tion, but it does not regard the adaptation as the result 
of design. We require the idea of purpose as a principle 
of explanation, but there is no trace of that idea in the 
act of judging an object aesthetically. 

Kant employs the doctrine that aesthetic judgments 
imply ' purposiveness without purpose ' to give further 
emphasis to the distinction already drawn between aes- 
thetic and logical judgments. The importance of en- 
forcing this distinction at every stage of the discussion 
will be explained in detail in a subsequent section. It 
is sufficient to note, in this connection, that Kant was 
contending all the while against the Wolffian dictum 
that, ' Beauty is merely Perfection confusedly appre- 
hended. ) 

( d ) Modality of aesthetic judgments. Under the cat- 
egory of modality, Kant sets forth the grounds for as- 
cribing the attribute of necessity to aesthetic judgments. 
That necessity, he explains, is of a peculiar kind ; for. 
while we can compel assent to logical judgments, judg- 
ments of taste are only ' exemplary' . That is, in the 
latter case we can only say that " every one ought to 
give his approval to the object in question and describe 
it as beautiful. " l The ground of this belief is found in 
the Idea of a common sense which is defined as " the 
faculty of feeling the effect resulting from the free play 

'R, IV, 88f. H.,V, 243. B., 92. 



60 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

of the cognitive powers. " 2 And since all persons have 
like cognitive faculties, we suppose that an object which 
arouses the feeling of beauty in one person's mind will 
of necessity arouse the same feeling in all other minds. 

We have seen in the preceding paragraphs that the 
analytic of the aesthetic Judgment involves a considera- 
tion of judgments of taste from four points of view : 
quality, quantity, relation, and modality. With refer- 
ence to the first aspect or characteristic ( quality ), aes- 
thetical Judgments were said to be entirely disinterested. 
There is no interest in the existence of the object. With 
reference to the second, ( quantity ) they are universally 
valid ; all persons are expected to agree in their aesthet- 
ical judgments of objects. The reason for ascribing uni- 
versality to judgments of taste rests upon the assumption 
that all persons have like cognitive faculties, and, also, a 
common sense, or faculty, of judging respecting the re- 
lation of those faculties. The relation expressed by 
judgments of taste is one of adaptation, or purposiveness ; 
but this adaptation is not regarded as the result of de- 
sign, i. <?., it expresses a relation of purposiveness with- 
out purpose ( Zweckmassigkeit ohne Zweck) . Lastly, 
the modality of judgments of taste is that of necessity, 
and is based, like the characteristic of universality, upon 
the idea of a sense common to all persons. These 
marks — disinterestedness, universality, necessity, and 
purposiveness without purpose — besides describing aes- 
thetical judgments — serve to mark them off from judg- 
ments about the pleasant and the good. It is now nec- 
essary to examine more in detail some of the main fea- 
tures of Kant's theory in order to understand its signifi- 
cance in his philosophy as a whole, and also to enable 
us to see how, in the beautiful object, there is a media- 

2 R., IV, 89. H., V, 244. B., 93. 



The Doctrine of Harmony. 61 

tion of freedom and nature. The concepts which seem 
to require further elucidation and discussion are : 
( i ) the doctrine that beauty depends upon the har- 
monious working of imagination and understanding, 
( 2 ) the distinction between aesthetic judgments and 
judgments of perfection, ( 3 ) the doctrine that judg- 
ments of taste imply ( purposiveness without purpose, ' 
(4) the universality and necessity of aesthetic judgments. 
After examining these four phases of Kant's theory 
an attempt will be made to show how the design implied 
in judgments of taste is, at the same time, evidence of 
mediation between nature and freedom. That is, it will 
be shown that in the beautiful object that mediation is 
thought to be effected. 

( a ) The doctrine of harmony. The most prominent 
feature in Kant's theory of the beautiful is the doctrine 
that the feeling of beauty depends upon the mutual sub- 
jective harmony of the cognitive faculties — Imagination 
and Understanding. All the parts of the theory center 
about the idea of harmony. In order, therefore, to a 
clearer and more exact understanding of Kant's doctrine, 
it becomes of highest importance to determine, if possi- 
ble, exactly what is meant by the rather formidable 
phrase, ( mutual subjective harmony of the cognitive 
faculties, ' and also what are the implications of the 
thought it contains. 

In this investigation it will be necessary to inquire, 
first, how does Kant define each of the cognitive facul- 
ties in the Critique of pure Reason ? What function 
does he assign to each, and what are the relations of the 
different faculties to each other ; and, in particular, how 
are Imagination and Understanding, whose mutual har- 
mony is at the basis of the experience of the beautiful, 
distinguished in the first Critique? Kant enumerates 



62 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

three steps or processes in the cognition of objects : re- 
ceptivity, synthesis, and recognition. Corresponding to 
these three steps are three cognitive faculties : sense, 
imagination, and understanding. " There are three sub- 
jective sources of knowledge on which the possibility of 
all experience and all knowledge depends, viz., sense, 
imagination, and understanding. (Apperception)" 1 In 
one respect the cognitive process may be conceived as 
beginning with Sense, which is defined as the faculty 
of receiving impressions according to the manner in 
which we are affected by objects. 2 It is the faculty which 
contributes the raw material, the scattered, disconnected 
manifold which the Understanding works up into knowl- 
edge. Kant elsewhere defines sensibility as " the re- 
ceptivity of our soul, or its power of receiving impres- 
sions whenever it is in any wise affected." 3 But if one 
stops with the work of sense one will have only a mani- 
fold of single, disconnected sense impressions ; there 
will be no order or unity in them ; they will pass before 
the mind as fleeting, isolated pictures before a mirror. 
Moreover, if every single representation stood by itself, 
as if isolated and separated from all others, nothing like 
what we call knowledge could ever arise. For "knowl- 
edge forms a whole of representations connected and 
compared with each other." 4 The elements of knowl- 
edge, the manifold, must be collected, synthesized, or 
unified, as Kant variously calls the next stage of the 
process. This second step is the work of imagination, 
" a blind but indispensable function of the soul without 
which we should have no knowledge whatsoever." 5 

'R., II, 90, 105. H., Ill, 112. M., II, pp. 84, 101. 
«R., II, 32 note. H., Ill, 56. M., II, 17. 
3 R., II, 56. H., Ill, 82. M., II, 45. 
4 R., II, 92. H., Ill, 566. M., II, 87. 
5 R., II, 77. H., Ill, 99. M., II, 69. 



The Doctrine of Harmony. 63 

The single, isolated, disconnected perceptions must have 
a connection, such as they cannot receive from mere 
sense, before they can be referred to an object of knowl- 
edge. " There exists in us, therefore, an active power 
for the synthesis of the manifold which we call imag- 
ination, and the function of which, as applied to percep- 
tions, I call apprehension. This imagination is meant 
to change the manifold into an Image." l But this 
synthesis of the manifold by imagination does not yet 
produce knowledge ; there is still required the work of 
the understanding, " the faculty of thinking an object 
in the manifold of sense by means of the categories." 2 
There is still necessary a faculty which is able to recog- 
nize and bring to light the principle of unity present in 
the manifold synthesized by imagination. Understand- 
ing recognizes the identity of the representations which 
are synthesised by imagination with the phenomena by 
which they were given; i. e., the understanding gives 
the representations an objective reference. The under- 
standing is defined, finally, as the faculty of judging, 
i. e., of referring the perceptions of sense to a concept. 
In this exercise of understanding, there is a conscious- 
ness of a unity in the perceptions ; whereas, the unity 
formed by imagination is unconscious. Understanding 
recognizes the manner or means by which the raw 
material of sense is collected by the imagination. 
Knowledge or experience, therefore, is the product of 
the combined activities of these three powers : Sense, 
the faculty of receiving impressions ; Imagination, the 
faculty of " blindly combining these impressions into 
an image ;" and Understanding, " the faculty of recog- 
nizing in that image the universality of the rule ac- 
cording to which the synthesis takes place." 

■ R., II, 109. H., 579. M., II, 105. 
2 R., II. 79. H., Ill, 100 f. M., II, 71. 



64 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

This account of the origin of knowledge, or experi- 
ence, taken from the first edition of the Critique of Pure 
Reason is found, on comparison, to be the same as the 
doctrine Kant had in mind when the Critique of Judg- 
ment was written. It is unnecessary to dwell at length 
upon the theory of knowledge advanced in the last named 
Critique. It will be sufficient to say that in the Critique 
of Judgment, Sense is conceived as a faculty of receiving 
impressions ; Imagination, as the faculty of combining 
those impressions into an image ; Understanding, as the 
faculty of recognizing in the image a unity by means of 
concepts. Sense supplies a disconnected, raw material ; 
Imagination reduces that discrete matter to unity ; Un- 
derstanding reveals the principle of unity by means of 
the categories. 1 

We are now prepared to proceed to the main question 
of this section, viz., what does Kant mean by the 
1 harmony ' of Imagination and Understanding which is 
the immediate occasion of the experience of the beauti- 
ful. 2 Etymologically the word 'harmony' suggests a 
fitting or joining together, (apiioZetv). The word was 
used primarily to indicate the external fitting together 
of the parts of a system : and, indeed, it retains much of 
its original meaning. The prominent element in the 
idea is still that of a complete correspondence of part to 
part. A perfect joint in mechanics, a skilful dovetail, a 
pair of cogwheels the teeth of which mesh with exact- 
ness yet without friction, a piece of music whose notes 
have their proper places with reference to the other 
notes are thought of as instances of harmony, or adapta- 
tion. Moreover, the system which Kant discovered or 

»R., IV, 90. H., V, 244. b., 93. 

2 1 say ' immediate occasion ' because the feeling of beauty is oc- 
casioned primarily by the beautiful object. 



The Doctrine of Harmony. 65 

devised in the Critique of Pure Reason which produces 
Knowledge — the framework of which is reproduced in 
the Critique of Judgment — justifies a more or less me- 
chanical representation of the idea of harmony. For, as 
we have seen, the Imagination as a piece of that 
mechanism — the faculty of collecting and converting 
into an image the manifold supplied by Sense, — is 
separate and distinct in its activity from the Understand- 
ing and its activity. A beautiful object then, a harmony- 
producing-object is one the raw material of which 
will permit an accordant, frictionless movement of these 
faculties. Beautiful objects are those whose elements or 
manifold are easily prepared by Imagination for recog- 
nition by the Understanding. They are objects whose 
elements are not stubborn and unruly, but plastic, and 
willing to be worked up into knowledge. Or again, at 
the risk of making Kant's theory of knowledge ridicu- 
lously mechanical, one may conceive the work of Imag- 
ination to consist in so moulding the manifold of sense 
that it may be given the stamp of recognition by the 
Understanding. If this manner of representing Kant's 
notion of harmony seems too concrete, too mechanical, 
we may take the more abstract statement that "harmony 
of the cognitive faculties means a state most favorable 
for both faculties in respect of cognition in general." 

But whatever method we employ to make intelligible 
the doctrine of harmony between imagination and un- 
derstanding as the ground of the experience of the beau- 
tiful, it is soon felt that an explanation of the feeling of 
beauty by reference to the harmonious play of the cog- 
nitive faculties is wholly incomplete and unsatisfactory. 
It is incomplete because it fails to indicate the relation 
of those faculties to the object judged beautiful. It fails 



66 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

to point out the relation of the cognitive faculties to the 
object which occasions the beautiful experience. It 
treats the activities of those faculties as if it were isolated 
and unrelated to the sense-world, while as a matter of 
fact the fundamental harmony is necessarily between 
the sense-product on the one hand and the activity of 
understanding on the other, i. <?., the harmony is funda- 
mentally, not between Imagination and Understanding, 
but between nature on the one hand and mind on the 
other. The harmony of imagination and understanding 
may be regarded as the immediate cause of the feeling of 
beauty, but the ultimate cause, or ground, is in the har- 
mony between the beautiful object and the cognitive 
faculties. The statement that an object excites the 
imagination and understanding to harmonious activity 
is only another way of saying that the object is adapted 
to, or is in harmony with, the activity of the faculty of 
knowing. The harmony of imagination and understand- 
ing implies a high degree of adaptation in certain objects 
to the faculty of cognition in general ; it implies that 
some objects are purposive with reference to the mutual 
agreement of sense-products and the activity of the un- 
derstanding. By regarding harmony as the ground of 
the feeling of beauty, Kant has reference directly to the 
relation of imagination and understanding ; indirectly, 
to the relation between the sense world and the faculty 
of cognition in general. That this latter is the real and 
fundamental harmony, becomes evident when we con- 
sider the section containing the solution of the antinomy 
which arises with reference to judgments of taste. l 
The following passages from that section may be cited 
in support of this position : " the judgment of taste is 
based upon the concept of the general ground of the sub- 

1 R., IV, 214 ff. H., V, 350 ff. B., 231 ff. 



The Doctrine of Harmony. 67 

jective purposiveness of nature for the faculty of knowl- 
edge. " l In another connection, the idea of the super- 
sensible substrate is referred to as " the ground of the 
subjective purposiveness of nature for our cognitive 
faculty. " 2 Here we have an explicit statement that the 
relation of purposiveness obtains between nature and 
mind. 

Another passage which gives additional strength to 
the view that the harmony of imagination and under- 
standing rests upon the deeper harmony between nature 
and reason, or mind, may be quoted from the section on 
the Idealism of purposiveness ; " The property of na- 
ture that gives us occasion to perceive the inner pur- 
posiveness hi the relation of our mental faculties in 
judging certain of its products cannot be a natural pur- 
pose, etc. " That is, certain features of nature are 
specially adapted to excite the pleasurable activity of the 
mental faculties. But it is unnecessary to seek for more 
explicit statements than the oft recurring one that the 
beautiful object is one adapted to produce such an ac- 
cordant activity of imagination and understanding as is 
requisite for cognition in general. Beautiful objects are 
also sense objects, and to say that they are purposive with 
reference to the mental powers and their employment is 
equivalent to saying that they are purposive for the activ- 
ity of mind, or reason. The conclusion is, therefore, that 
the free play, the relation of harmony between the cogni- 
tive faculties, which is the immediate occasion of the feel- 
ing of beauty, rests upon the peculiar adaptation of certain 
natural objects to the activity of mind in general. Pri- 
marily, the harmony is not between imagination and un- 
derstanding but between nature on the one hand and the 

'R, IV, 216. H., v, 351. B. 233. 
? R., IV, 223. H. : V, 357. B., 241. 



68 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

knowing mind on the other, or between percept and con- 
cept. We are thus led to see that, and how, the feeling 
of beauty is a revelation of the fact of mediation between 
freedom and nature. 

(b) Distinction between Beauty and Perfection. In 
the exposition of the theory of beauty it was observed 
that its most conspicuous feature is the emphasis laid 
upon the difference between the Beautiful and the Good. 
It was noted that Kant's great and constant purpose was 
to remove every possibility of confounding judgments of 
taste with judgments of the good, or perfect. One might 
go further and say that the whole of the Critique of the 
aesthetical Judgment was planned and executed with a 
view to enforcing that distinction ; that every argument 
was framed with the clear purpose of driving home the 
doctrine that the two classes of judgments are radically 
different. 

Before examining those arguments and their implica- 
tions, it will be convenient to digress at this point and 
seek for an explanation of Kant's vigilance in guarding 
the peculiarity and distinctness which he had assigned 
to aesthetic judgments. Why was he so anxious to 
establish the individuality, the separateness, of judg- 
ments of taste ? What is the origin of his interest in 
marking off that class of judgments from every other? 
The answer, I believe, is suggested by the following 
considerations : Kant's original purpose, according to the 
theory advanced in Part I of this inquiry, was to find an 
a priori ground for the faculty of Feeling as had been 
done for Intellect and Will. The idea of completeness 
and symmetry demanded that the feeling experience 
should be rationalized and grounded in a prio7 r i prin- 
ciples which are separate and distinct from the princi- 
ples underlying the activity of cognition and desire. 



Distinction between Beauty and Perfection. 69 

Another consideration that prompted Kant to claim for 
aesthetic judgments a peculiar nature, was the fact that 
since Understanding and Reason furnish the a priori 
grounds for intellect and will, it may be supposed that 
Judgment — the third of the supreme cognitive faculties 
— will perform a similar work for feeling. But if 
aesthetic judgments are resolved into judgments of 
perfection, it is clear that their guiding principle is de- 
rived not from Judgment, but from the Understanding, 
i. <?., that they are based upon a concept, or idea, of what 
the thing should be. The doctrine that beauty is perfec- 
tion confusedly apprehended, clearly leaves no place for 
judgments based upon a peculiar and distinct principle 
supplied by the faculty of Judgment. That was the 
view Kant took of the matter. He had a sort of jealousy 
towards the Understanding lest it should encroach upon 
a territory which rightfully belongs to Judgment. If 
judgments of taste can be based upon concepts similar 
to those upon which judgments of the good rest, then 
the distinctness of the aesthetic judgment is lost, or 
rather it has no need of additional grounds of activity. 
Moreover, Kant saw that if the Wolffians were right in 
maintaining that the feeling of beauty is only a confused 
judgment of perfection, then the search for an a priori 
principle which shall serve as a guide for the activities 
of a faculty which has no special and distinguishing 
characteristic, no peculiar employment, is clearly useless 
and absurd. 

We shall now proceed to examine the arguments ad- 
vanced by Kant to enforce the distinction between judg- 
ments of beauty and judgments of perfection. The prob- 
lem, as it framed itself in Kant's mind was : Is beauty per- 
fection apprehended through the senses ? Is the judgment 
that an object is beautiful merely the forerunner of a 



jo Teleology in KanVs Critical Philosophy. 

possible judgment that the object is an instance of the 
perfect blending of a manifold with a given concept ? 
May the same object be judged beautiful from one stand- 
point and perfect from another ? If these questions are 
answered in the affirmative then obviously there is no 
difference between the beautiful object of Kant and 
the beautiful object of the Wolffians. In that case, 
the difference between the two theories, upon which 
Kant lays so much emphasis, must be sought elsewhere 
than in the character of the objects pronounced beauti- 
ful. It must be found in the nature of the judgments, 
or rather, in a difference in attitude on the part of the sub- 
ject judging. The Wolffians implied in the judgment that 
an object is beautiful, the further judgment that it is also 
perfect. They maintained that the aesthetic judgment 
implies a logical judgment respecting the nature of the 
object. Kant, on the other hand, insists over and over 
again, that the judgment of taste, qua judgment of taste, 
says absolutely nothing respecting the nature of the ob- 
ject except that it is adapted to excite a harmonious in- 
teraction of Imagination and Understanding. The Wolf- 
fians would say, ' I apprehend confusedly by Feeling the 
perfect union of the raw material of Sense with a con- 
cept of the Understanding.' Kant would say, ' I ap- 
prehend absolutely nothing regarding the character of 
the object, nor is anything further implied in the judg- 
ment of taste than the fitness of a given object to pro- 
duce a free play of Imagination and Understanding.' 
The ground of that fitness is not known, it is not sought 
for. The judgment of beauty is limited to the mere as- 
sertion of a contemplative delight which a given object 
produces. 

It would carry us far beyond our present purpose to 
attempt an evaluation of Kant's proposed modification of 



Distinction between Beauty and Perfection. 71 

aesthetical theory. Yet, the remark may be ventured 
that Kant made a decided improvement upon the theory 
of aesthetics which he had inherited from the Wolffian 
school by his strong insistence upon the distinction be- 
tweeen the feeling of beauty and the cognition of per- 
fection. The Wolffian doctrine that beauty is perfection 
indistinctly or confusedly apprehended, and the inherent 
implication that the two are at bottom identical, entirely 
neglects the emotional element in the experience of 
beauty. That theory is purely rationalistic, and, if it is 
consistent, derives beauty entirely from rational factors. 
But, as Kant rightly maintains, experience of beauty 
is not a recognition, even though confused, of the con- 
formity of an object to an idea, or concept ; and his in- 
sistence that the two classes of judgments should rigor- 
ously be kept apart is fully justified. For the instant 
one judges an object according to a plan, the moment 
one asks whether the object realizes a purpose, that mo- 
ment one ceases to regard the object aesthetically. In 
that case the emotional element, which constitutes the 
beautiful experience, is displaced by a logical judgment. 
But, in reality, we do not come to beautiful objects with 
an ideal standard to which they must conform ; rather 
we feel or experience the ideal through the harmonious 
play of our faculties. Kant's clear recognition of this 
fact, his tendency to suppress the cognitive and empha- 
size the emotional element, renders his theory decidedly 
superior to that of his immediate predecessors. 

Admitting the correctness and value of the contribu- 
tion which Kant made to the theory of Aesthetics in 
thus freeing judgments of taste from any reference to 
the perfection or imperfection of an object, must we not 
say after all that the beautiful object is a perfect object 
in that it is an embodiment of an idea or concept of the 



72 Teleology i7i Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

Understanding? Must we not say that although the 
idea of perfection does not enter into the mere judgment 
of taste, yet the perfect harmony of a manifold with a 
concept is at the basis of the feeling of beauty ? Kant 
did not discuss this question. He nowhere explicitly 
affirms or denies that a beautiful object may also be re- 
garded as a perfect object. The single point upon 
which he insists is, that at the time beauty is experi- 
enced there is no concept or purpose present to the mind 
of the person judging. Although there are no explicit 
statements on the subject, there is abundant evidence 
available to support the theory that the beautiful object 
and the perfect object are identical in character, that 
both are actualizations of an idea or concept. The 
clearest proof of this is derived from the cardinal doc- 
trine of the theory, viz., that the beautiful object is one 
whose form harmonizes with the faculty of cognition in 
general ; that the pleasure which beauty excites is the 
result of the agreement of an object with the empirical 
use of the judgment in general which consists in refer- 
ring intuitions of Imagination to concepts of the Under- 
standing. 1 Now the perfect object is a union of percept 
and concept ; that the same description will apply to the 
beautiful object will be evident when it is remembered 
that the experience of the beautiful results from the free 
play between Imagination (the faculty of percepts) and 
Understanding (the faculty of concepts). There is a 
union of percept and concept in both beauty and perfec- 
tion. In the one, notice is taken merely of the free rela- 
tion^ the harmonious state of the faculties employed in 
the process, and because of that harmonious relation the 
object is judged beautiful. In judgments of perfection, 
attention is centered upon the character of the object ; it 
'R., IV, 30 f. H., V, 196. B., 31. 



Distinction between Beauty and Perfection. 73 

is said to be a union of percept and concept, and, there- 
fore, is perfect. 

The same doctrine may be stated in a slightly different 
form by considering Kant's way of conceiving the rela- 
tions of the activities and products of Imagination and 
Understanding. The work of imagination consists in re- 
ferring a combined manifold to a concept of the under- 
standing. That object whose manifold is most easily re- 
ducible to a concept is the beautiful object, because it per- 
mits the free play of those faculties. Such an object is 
also perfect, because perfection consists in the agreement 
of manifold and concept. The work and general relation 
of the faculties of imagination and understanding in the 
apprehension of an object which is not beautiful are the 
same as in the apprehension of an object which is beau- 
tiful. In both cases there is a reference of percepts to 
concepts, the difference being entirely in the purposive- 
ness which some objects display to put those faculties in 
more harmonious relations. In the case of the beautiful 
object, and in the case of the object not beautiful, the re- 
lation of the cognitive powers is the one most suitable 
for the cognition of the particular object. But the rela- 
tion most suitable for cognition in general must be that 
in which the employment of the faculty of percepts is in 
perfect accord with that of the faculty of concepts. 
That harmonious relation is the cause of the feeling of 
beauty. The conclusion, therefore, is that if the per- 
fect object is defined as one in which there is a perfect 
union of percept and concept, of matter and idea, then 
the beautiful object is also capable of being regarded as 
a perfect object. But the fact that it is perfect, that it 
is the embodiment of an idea, the fulfillment of a con- 
cept, is not present to consciousness when one experi- 
ences the feeling of beauty. 



74 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

It remains to indicate the relation of the conclusion 
of the present discussion, viz., that the feeling of beauty 
is grounded primarily upon the union of percept and 
concept, to the doctrine that the accordance of Imagina- 
tion and Understanding is based upon the fundamental 
harmony of Mind and Nature. The two conclusions 
are in accord and are mutually explanatory. Since the 
feeling of beauty rests upon the harmonious relation of 
Imagination (the faculty of percepts) and Understanding, 
(the faculty of concepts) and since the one contributes to 
the structure of knowledge a synthesized manifold derived 
from the sense-world (nature), and the other contains 
the principle of recognizing the unity in that synthesis 
(a mental factor), it is clear that the expression " harmony 
of nature and mind " is identical in meaning with the 
expression 'harmony of percept and concept.' 

(c) Purposiveness without purpose. Complementary 
to the distinction which Kant draws between the judg- 
ment of taste and the judgment of perfection, is the 
doctrine that the former has reference to a purposiveness 
without purpose, while the latter involves a purposive- 
ness with purpose. That is, in judgments of taste we 
think purpose, but we are not warranted in supposing 
that the object judged beautiful is the result of purpose. 
When it is said that the beautiful object is an instance 
of " purposiveness without purpose," we mean that 
although no concept is needed as a point of reference 
for the object in order to judge it beautiful — nay, more, 
the reference to a concept would mar the purity of the 
judgment — yet we are compelled to assume as a prin- 
ciple of explanation the existence of a designing intelli- 
gence as the ground of the purposiveness exhibited by 
the beautiful in nature and art. " Although we cannot 
place the cause of the purposive form of beautiful objects 



Purposiveness without Purpose. 75 

in a Will, we can only make the explanation of its pos- 
sibility intelligible to ourselves by deriving it from a 
Will." 1 We must think the beautiful object as if it 
owed its form and its adaptation to our cognitive powers, 
to the work of a designing Intelligence. 

Kant repeats the doctrine of " purposiveness without 
purpose " in the section on The Idealism, of the pur- 
posiveness of both Nature and Art, etc. 2 Those who 
maintain the realism of the purposiveness of nature re- 
gard the adaptation of natural objects to our cognitive 
faculties as designed. This view seems to find support 
in " the beautiful formations in the kingdom of organ- 
ized nature," since we might assume that behind the 
production of those formations there is an Idea of the 
beautiful in the producing cause, viz., a purpose in re- 
spect of our imagination." 3 Those who maintain the 
ideality of purposiveness in nature, while admitting that 
there is just such an agreement as there would be if 
designed, yet point out, first, that nature everywhere 
shows in its free formations much mechanical ten- 
dency to the production of forms which seem to be 
made for the aesthetical exercise of our Judgment, 
without affording the least ground for supposing that 
there is need of anything more than mechanism for 
their production." i For example, crystallization in all 
its various forms often presents beautiful shapes, but it 
apparently takes place according to purely mechanical 
laws without reference to any design whatever. If mere 
mechanism is sufficient to explain beautiful formations 
in the inorganic world, why is it not sufficient to ex- 
plain the beautiful in organic nature ? 

1 R., IV, 67. H., V, 225. b., 68. 

2 R.,IV, 223. H., V, 357. B.,2 4 if. 

4 R„ IV, 225. EL, V, 359- B., 243. 

*R., IV, 225. H., Ill, 357. B., 243. 



J 6 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

But there is another and stronger reason for maintain- 
ing the ideality of the purposiveness of Nature ; the fact, 
viz., that in " judging beauty we invariably seek its gauge 
in ourselves a priori." 2 In aesthetical judgments we do 
not consider what nature is in itself, or in relation to 
ourselves, but " how we take it." We do not judge that 
nature shows us favor — that would be a judgment of ob- 
jective purposiveness — but that we receive nature with 
favor, that it is subjectively purposive. To maintain the 
reality of the purposiveness of beautiful objects is equiv- 
alent to saying that they were produced according to 
some design. This, however, contradicts an essential 
feature of the beautiful, viz., that its purposiveness is 
undesigned, merely subjective, and based wholly upon 
the harmonious relation of the cognitive faculties, im- 
agination and understanding. The purposiveness which 
nature displays in beautiful objects must be conceived 
as undesigned ; it is a " purposiveness without purpose ". 

Finally, it may be pointed out that the doctrine of 
' purposiveness without purpose ' is merely another 
aspect or statement of an important feature of Kant's 
theory already discussed that aesthetic judgments are 
entirely free from any reference to purpose or concept of 
purpose, except the concept, or Idea, of a supersensible 
ground of purpose to be considered hereafter. 

(d) Universality and necessity of aesthetic Judgments. 
One more important feature of Kant's theory remains to 
be considered, namely, the ground of the universality 
and necessity claimed for judgments of taste. In the 
Analytic, Kant bases the universality and necessity 
which he ascribes to aesthetic judgments upon the Idea 
of a universal voice, or common sense, which has the 
power of perceiving the agreement or disagreement, the 

2R.,IV, 228. H., Ill, 361. B., 246. 



Universality of Aesthetic Judgments. jy 

harmony or disharmony of the representative faculties 
in apprehending objects of nature or art. Having 
assumed that the process of cognition is the same in all 
persons, Kant held that nothing more is needed to give 
a universally valid estimate of the aesthetic character of 
objects, than a sense, or faculty of judging aesthetically, 
common to all persons. 

Kant left the matter in this somewhat unsatisfactory 
form in the Analytic, but doubtless clearly realized the 
difficulty of attributing universality and necessity to 
aesthetic judgments without admitting at the same time 
that such judgments must be based upon concepts. But 
he could not make this admission without violating the 
cardinal principle that judgments of taste are wholly in- 
dependent of any reference to concepts. Accordingly, 
an attempt is made in the solution of the antinomy of 
taste to discover a different ground for the universality 
and necessity ascribed to aesthetic judgments. In fact, 
the antinomy is essentially a statement of the difficulty, 
just referred to, of claiming universality and necessity 
for aesthetic judgments without basing them upon con- 
cepts. The antinomy is stated thus : " Thesis — The 
judgment of taste is not based upon concepts. Anti- 
thesis — The judgment of taste is based upon concepts." 
The antinomy is solved by showing that the ' concept ' 
to which we refer the object in this class of judgments 
is not taken in the same sense in both thesis and anti- 
thesis, 1 It is plain that the object cannot be referred to 
a concept of the understanding, for in that case it would 
become a logical and not an aesthetical judgment. Still, 
the judgment of taste must refer to some concept ; other- 
wise, we could not ascribe to it universality and neces- 
sity. But it is not a concept that affords a ground of 

1 R., IV, 214 ff. H., v, 350 f. b., 231. 



78 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

proof, or one through which we can know anything. It 
is " the mere pure rational concept of the supersensible 
which underlies the object (and also the subject judging 
it) regarded as an object of sense and thus as phe- 
nomenal." 1 That is, at the basis of judgments of taste 
is the concept, or idea, of a supersensible substrate of 
both object and subject. 

But how, the reader will ask, does the mere idea of a 
ground common to the object perceived and the per- 
ceiving mind afford proof that aesthetic judgments are 
universally valid ? Kant's discussion at this point is a 
hopeless tangle of broken sentences and obscure phrases, 
and one can do no more than guess at its main threads. 
In the first place, Kant repeats, in slightly altered form, 
the theory that beauty depends upon the free play of 
imagination and understanding. According to his modi- 
fied statement, the idea of a supersensible substrate for 
imagination, the faculty of percepts, and understanding, 
the faculty of concepts, is the ground of their mutual 
adaptation. Now it is far from clear what Kant means 
by ( supersensible substrate, etc.,' but it is probable that in 
these words we have another expression of the thought 
contained in the well-known passage of the Introduction 
to the first Critique : — " There are two stems of human 
knowledge, which perhaps may spring from a common 
root unknown to us, etc." In that case, the adaptation 
of the cognitive faculties results from the fact of identity 
of ground, or origin. The activity of Sense is in har- 
mony with the activity of Understanding, because both 
activities spring from a common source. They are 
thought as merely different modes in which the super- 
sensible reality expresses itself. 

After establishing a new ground for the adaptation of 

] R, IV, 216. H., V, 351. B.,233. 



The Beautiful a Union of Freedom and Nature. 79 

the cognitive faculties, the next step in the argument is 
to explain the universality and necessity of aesthetic 
judgments by reference to " the concept of the general 
ground of the subjective purposiveness of nature for the 
faculty of cognition in general." Kant assumes, in the 
first place, that there is a Reason common to all human 
beings ; and, secondly, that nature is adapted to the em- 
ployment of that Reason. This is sufficient to account 
for the universal validity of logical judgments, but it is 
not so clear how it will justify one in attributing that 
quality to judgments of taste. Kant maintains, how- 
ever, that the idea of a common ground, or substrate, of 
humanity, taken with the idea of a ground, or substrate, 
of both nature and Reason will account for the purposive- 
ness which certain objects display with reference to 
the employment of our faculties, and, also, for the 
universal validity of the aesthetic judgments we make 
concerning those objects. 

(e) The beautiful object a union of freedom and nature. 
It remains to conclude this section by emphasizing the 
thought that the beautiful object affords an example of 
a reconciliation between the realms of nature and free- 
dom, and that the judgment of beauty is a revelation, or 
expression, of that mediation. It will be helpful to 
raise anew the questions : What is meant by mediation 
of nature and freedom, and what would constitute such 
a mediation ? We have already seen that Kant means 
by ' realm of nature ' the realm of the material, sense- 
world considered as a system of phenomena in space and 
time strictly subject to the law of natural necessity. It 
has also been shown that the ' realm of freedom ' is the 
realm of ideas, or purposes, and that it is not subject to 
the ordinary laws of nature. Now a reconciliation or 
mediation of these two realms would be effected by 



8o Teleology in KanVs Critical Philosophy. 

actualizing an idea, or purpose, in the material world. 
Freedom is the principle, or power, of originating ideals 
and purposes, and when we find evidence of the work of 
this power in the physical world we have an example of 
mediated nature and freedom. If such an example can 
be found we may say the ideal has become real, and that 
it has taken on a concrete body and form. This thought 
may be illustrated by thinking of the work of the 
sculptor who undertakes to delineate in a rough piece of 
marble his idea of any thing, or person, real, or imagin- 
ary. As the chips fall before the mallet and chisel, the 
idea is being realized, until, finally, when the last stroke 
is made, the idea has become actualized, it has sprung 
forth a reality. With this understanding of mediation 
we shall now examine Kant's statement that " the 
beautiful object, or the purposiveness which it displays, 
is fit to be a mediating link between the realms of nature 
and freedom." First, it is observed that Kant attributes 
purposiveness to beautiful objects because of their fitness 
to arouse a pleasurable employment of the faculty of 
cognition in general. The principle upon which Kant 
bases the reference of purposiveness to the beautiful is, 
" that if an object or state of mind, or even an action is 
inexplicable except by reference to a ground of causality 
acting according to purpose, then we must think pur- 
pose 'V When an object is contingent so far as the 
ordinary processes of nature are concerned we are obliged 
to employ the idea of design as a principle of its explan- 
ation. On this ground, the beautiful object is thought 
to require the employment of the idea of design as the 
key to its explanation. One cannot penetrate the 
secret of its nature without regarding it as the 
embodiment of an idea, or purpose. But, as we 
1 R.,iV, 67. H., v, 225. B., 68. 



Design in Organic Nature. 81 

have seen, to find purpose in an object is the same as 
to find in it a union, a mediation of nature and freedom. 
Such an object may aptly be described as a ' concrete 
idea ', an idea which has taken body and form, which 
has become tangible. The beautiful object reveals this 
union of freedom and nature in the fact that it con- 
tains a manifold of sense adapted to arouse the har- 
monious activity of Imagination and Understanding. 
If one goes deeper for the ground of the harmony, it is 
found in the fact that an idea is immanent in the beauti- 
ful object : there is a union of real and ideal. To 
slightly vary Bosanquet's language, " The beautiful ob- 
ject is assigned by Kant the high position of being the 
representative of reason in the world of sense, and of 
sense in the world of reason 'V 

§ 4. EVIDENCE OF DESIGN IN ORGANIC NATURE. 

It must constantly be borne in mind that the principal 
aim of this study is to examine the Critique of Judg- 
ment as a means of combining the Critiques of pure and 
practical Reason ; or, if one is thinking of the content — 
the inner nature of the three Critiques — the object is to 
consider the principle of purposiveness, which the Cri- 
tique of Judgment exhibits, as a principle of mediation 
between the modes of thought prevailing in the realms 
of nature and freedom. Our purpose is to consider the 
principle of teleology as a means of harmonizing the 
view that insists unyieldingly upon the universal valid- 
ity and applicability of the principles of physical science 
and the view that claims for freedom a causality inde- 
pendently of the physical series. 

In the first two Critiques, Kant tried to overcome this 
opposition by conceiving two separate worlds, or king- 
'Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 261. 



82 Teleology in Kant's Critical Philosophy. 

doms, in one of which Science and its principles should 
have undisputed authority ; in the other, Freedom and 
its legislation should have absolute dominion. This is 
the familiar distinction between the phenomenal and 
noumenal worlds, by which the principles of physical 
science are left in secure possession of the phenomenal 
world, while the practical Reason is relegated to the 
noumenal world. Kant's critics, however, were not dis- 
posed to allow him to lay the unction to his soul that 
his solution of the difficulty was adequate ; and, al- 
though he valiantly came to its defense, he soon saw the 
need of a positive and real harmonization of the results 
of the earlier Critiques. That is, he came to see that 
the purposes of freedom must be thought as being capa- 
ble of realization in nature. It must be conceivable 
that the ideals of practical Reason are able to find ex- 
pression in the sense world. 

We have seen in the preceding sections of this Part, 
that the purposiveness displayed by beautiful objects is 
thought to bridge the chasm between nature and free- 
dom. We shall now have to consider another set of 
purposive phenomena which are thought to unite 
these two realms. Those phenomena are organisms, 
and they form the subject matter of the second part of 
the Critique of Judgment, the Critique of the teleolog- 
ical Judgment. 

It is now proposed to consider the main doctrines of 
the last named work, omitting everything which does 
not contribute directly to elucidate the thesis that or- 
ganisms are inexplicable to us unless we import the con- 
cept of purpose as a new principle of explanation. The 
general problem discussed in this part of the Critique 
of Judgment is, " to what extent and on what grounds 
can we apply the idea of objective purposiveness to 



Desig7i in Organic Nature. 83 

nature?" In former works, Kant had considered the 
grounds for regarding nature in some of its parts, or as 
a whole, as either subjectively or formally purposive. 
He had shown in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment 
that we have good ground for assuming that nature, in 
many of its products, is subjectively purposive wuth 
reference to the nature of our cognitive faculties. Many 
objects appear especially fitted for our Judgment, and 
"serve at once to strengthen and sustain the mental 
powers that come into play in the employment of this 
faculty." 1 In this respect nature is said to be subject- 
ively purposive. So, also, in the Dialectic of the Cri- 
tique of Pure Reason, and in the Introduction to the 
Critique of Judgment, Kant already had vindicated the 
use of the concept of the formal purposiveness of nature 
as an aid in our investigation of nature. In both places 
he maintained, (1) that the world is an intelligible sys- 
tem; (2) that it is intelligible to us; (3) that we are 
warranted in carrying with us as a guide and impetus 
to the investigation of phenomena, the assumption that 
the world is designed with reference to the nature of our 
cognitive powers. In this way Kant had indicated the 
grounds for attributing both subjective and formal pur- 
posiveness to nature. The Beautiful leads us to think 
subjective purposiveness ; the order and system of nature 
justifies us in regarding it as formally purposive. The 
question now is, can we apply the idea of objective pur- 
posiveness, to nature as a whole, or to any of its parts ? 
In other words, do purposes constitute a particular 
kind of causality in the realm of organic nature ? 

According to his usual method, Kant divides the Cri- 
tique of the teleological Judgment into an Analytic and 
Dialectic, with an Appendix on Methodology. The 

l R. ? IV, 239. H., V, 371. B., 259. 



84 Teleology in KanPs Critical Philosophy. 

particular tasks undertaken in the Analytic are, (1) to 
define and illustrate the different kinds of objective pur- 
posiveness ; (2) to present the evidence of design in 
nature ; (3) to indicate the place of teleology in a the- 
oretical natural science. 

In discussing the first of these points, Kant dis- 
tinguishes formal from material, objective purposive- 
ness. Certain geometrical figures, e. g., the circle, which 
' display a manifold, oft-admired purposiveness with ref- 
erence to their usefulness for the solution of several 
problems by a single principle,' are cited as examples of 
formal objective purposiveness. 1 They are formally, 
not materially purposive, because it is not supposed that 
the figures exist in order to fulfill the use made of them. 
That is, purpose is not thought to be the ground or basis 
of their existence. The definition of material object- 
ive purposiveness is implicit in the foregoing, viz., a 
purpose which implies that the purposiveness is de- 
signed, is dependent on a concept of purpose, e. g., when 
one sees the plants in a garden distributed with order 
and regularity, one is led to suppose that the order 
and regularity is the result of plan. Here we have 
material objective purposiveness, of which there are two 
kinds, relative and inner. Relative, or external, pur- 
pose is seen in those objects that serve as means to other 
objects, e. g., grass is a relative purpose with reference 
to the needs of certain herbivorous animals. It is pur- 
posive, not in itself, but with relation to something else. 
We say, on the contrary, that a thing displays inner pur- 
pose when it exists as an end in itself. One does not need, 
that is, to go outside of it to make its nature intelligible. 
It is a whole which contains its own explanation : it has 
inner purposiveness (innere Zweckmassigkeit). 
1 R., IV, 242. H., v, 374. B., 262. 



Design in Organic Nature. 85 

After drawing these distinctions, Kant proceeds to 
consider a particular class of natural products, which, at 
the same time, are natural purposes. These objects 
have three distinguishing marks. In the first place, 
they must be both cause and effect of themselves. This 
paradox is exemplified in the case of a tree that pro- 
duces itself generically. Viewed from one standpoint 
the genus tree is continually self-produced : viewed from 
another, it continually produces itself. That which in 
one sense is the effect may also be regarded as the cause 
of the effect. Practical life affords numerous instances 
of this kind of causal connection, e.g., when one lights 
a lamp in the evening, the idea of a possible light is the 
cause of lighting the lamp ; the effect, or the idea of the 
effect, is the real cause. The remaining marks of 
things regarded as natural purposes are, first, that their 
parts shall be ordered with reference to the character of 
the whole ; that the idea of the whole shall determine 
the character of all the parts. And in the second 
place, it is necessary that the parts should so combine 
in the unity of the whole as to be reciprocally cause and 
effect of each others form ; that " every part should exist 
not only by means of the other parts, but be thought as 
existing for the sake of the others and the whole." l 
Thus in a tree the various parts exist by means of, and 
for the sake of, the other parts, as well as for the tree as a 
whole. " A natural purpose is, therefore, an organized 
and self-organizing being." 2 The purpose is not referred 
to a being outside the object, as in a work of art, but is 
thought to be in the object itself. To speak strictly, 
then, the organization of nature has in it nothing 
analogous to any causality we know. 3 The object and 

»R., IV, 257. H., V, 386. B., 277. 
Z R., IV, 257. H.,V, 386. B.,278. 
3 R.,IV, 258. H., V, 387. B.,279. 



86 1 eleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

every part of it are conceived as being determined by 
the idea of the object as a whole. It follows, therefore, 
that we have no reason to regard the form of such a 
natural product as partly dependent upon mechanism 
and partly dependent upon purpose ; i. e n we must not 
mix mechanism and teleology in judging nature. 

We are thus brought to the third important discussion 
of the Analytic; viz., the place of teleology in theoretical 
natural science. Kant holds that both the mechanical 
and teleological methods are required to interpret nature. 
If Reason hopes to gain an insight into the nature of 
things, it must not abandon the mechanical mode of ex- 
planation, but it is just as necessary that the purposive- 
ness of nature should not be overlooked. In the first 
place, Kant maintains that every investigator proceeds on 
the assumption that the world is adapted to the use of 
our cognitive faculties, that is, that it is intelligible. It is 
a necessary assumption of reason that order and system 
exist amid all the manifoldness and variety of nature, or 
in other words, that nature embodies some intelligible 
purpose. " The conceived harmony of nature in the 
variety of its particular laws with our need of finding 
universality of principles for it, must be judged as con- 
tingent in respect of our insight ; but yet at the same time 
as indispensable for the needs of our understanding ; and, 
consequently, as a purposiveness by which nature is har- 
monized with our design, which has only knowledge for 
its aim." 1 That is, it is assumed that we shall be able 
to unite all diverse principles under one all embracing 
principle ; that nature is a unity, and that we may con- 
tinually approach the discovery of that unity in the ex- 
tension of knowledge. 

A special application of the general principle of the 
] R., IV, 26. H., V, 193. B., 26. 



Design in Organic Nature, 87 

intelligibility of nature is made by the scientist in 
approaching the investigation of organic phenomena. 
For he proceeds upon the assumption that all the parts of 
an organism have a meaning with reference to all the 
other parts ; " that nothing in such a creature is in vain." 
He supposes that such objects are fashioned according 
to a plan, and that all the parts bear an important rela- 
tion to that plan. This use of design may be illustrated 
by taking the case of a botanist who is attracted by the 
curious arrangement of the parts of a particular flower. 
He quite naturally will ask, what is it for? i. e., what is 
its purpose ? Investigation stimulated and guided by 
the desire to understand the purpose or design of the 
peculiar, arrrangement of the flower parts, results in 
showing that it is a device to prevent close and secure 
cross-fertilization. Numerous examples might be given 
to show that some of the richest rewards of scientific in- 
quiry are gained in the effort to explain the meaning, 
or purpose, of something which appears in itself to be 
merely unusual, or trivial, both in the inorganic and 
organic realms ; and in faithfully following the teleologi- 
cal maxim that everything in nature has a meaning. 

In addition to the uses of design as a regulative prin- 
ciple indicated by Kant, there are passages in which he 
seems to say that we cannot fully understand a thing 
until we gain an insight into its purpose, or can tell 
what end it serves. The account of how it came to be 
as it is, may be full and complete, and yet we may have 
no real understanding of the object. The mechanical 
explanation must be supplemented by the teleological. 1 

1 Kant has no thought, however, of abandoning the scientific mode 
of explanation in favor of the teleological. His employment of the 
notion of design is not the one ridiculed by Spinoza as "the retreat 
to the sanctuary of ignorance " when it is impossible to find scientific 
explanations of phenomena. For, it will be remembered, (1) that 



88 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

Having presented in the foregoing paragraphs Kant's 
use of the notion of design in investigating organic 
nature, it remains to indicate the application of the 
doctrine of purposiveness in organisms to the problem 
of mediation. We have seen that Kant was led to em- 
ploy the idea of design as a guiding principle in the in- 
vestigation of organic phenomena because the mechan- 
ical rules of explanation do not enable us to render a 
full account of the form and existence of those phe- 
nomena. The harmonious relation of the parts cannot 
be thought except as the result of design. The idea of 
the whole is thought to determine the form and com- 
bination of the various parts of the organism, just as in a 
work of art, the idea of the work as a whole determines 
the special features and parts of the production. More- 
over in the organism, an Idea is taken as the ground of the 
form and existence of the object. An object whose parts 
stand in organic relation furnishes an instance of the 
union of purpose and sensuous matter, of idea and 
reality. Now since the realm of nature is also the 
realm of the material, and the realm of freedom corre- 
sponds to the realm of purposes, we are enabled to see 
that in the organism we have a union of freedom and 
nature. In an organism we have an example of purpo- 
siveness, or freedom, revealing itself in the material, 
sense-world. 

the idea of design which Kant employs is that of natural, or immanent 
purpose in the organism itself, and that there is no necessary refer- 
ence to an external will ; and (2), that the idea of purposiveness in 
its regulative use contributes directly towards the discovery of natural 
causes. Furthermore, (3) one may say that this idea completes the 
scientific explanation by showing the real unity and intelligibility 
of the facts which the latter presents. It is both the author and 
finisher of the scientific mode of explanation. 



Teleology in Kan?s Ethics. 89 

§ 5. RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO KANT'S ETHICAL 
DOCTRINES. 

The two preceding sections were concerned chiefly in 
developing and illustrating the thought which is 
implicit in Kant's phrase that, c purposiveness is fit to 
be a mediating link between the realms of nature and 
freedom.' Preliminary to that discussion, a section was 
given to the representation of the nature of the opposi- 
tion between these two realms. Before we could under- 
stand what mediation meant, and what it involved, it 
was necessary to determine the nature of the opposites 
which were to be mediated. It was seen that the an- 
tagonism is between the mode of thought which regards 
every event in the order of nature as the result of purely 
physical forces, and the mode of thought which claims 
for Reason a causality through freedom. 

The effort to harmonize, or reconcile, these opposing 
modes of thought formed an important, if not the most 
important part of the Critical philosophy. Abundant 
evidence could be adduced to support the thesis that 
Kant's paramount purpose throughout the entire course 
of his reflection was to reconcile the doctrines of freedom 
and necessity, to harmonize the teleological and me- 
chanical conceptions of the world. One may distinguish 
three steps, or stages, in Kant's treatment of this prob- 
lem. The first is that presented in the solution of the 
third Antinomy, and is usually referred to as the solu- 
tion by the doctrine of the ideality of phenomena, or by 
the distinction of phenomena and noumena. Kant in 
these pages reminds us that the transcendental analytic 
of pure Reason firmly established the correctness of the 
doctrine, that all events in the phenomenal world have 
an unbroken connection according to unchangeable 



90 Teleology in KanVs Critical Philosophy. 

laws ; that therefore, the only question open is ' whether 
it is a proper disjunctive proposition to say, that every 
effect in the world must arise, either from nature or from 
freedom, or whether both cannot co-exist in the same 
event in different relations. 1 Does causality by nature 
exclude the possibility of causality by freedom ? May not 
freedom and nature unite in producing the same effect ? 
Kant's answer is that if you insist upon the reality of 
phenomena, freedom is lost, because, in the world of phe- 
nomena, events have an unbroken connection according 
to the unalterable law of natural necessity. But by 
ascribing both an empirical and an intelligible character 
to every subject of the sense-world, one may think free- 
dom though it cannot thereby be established. In its 
empirical character every subject, as a phenomenon, 
would stand with other phenomena in an unbroken con- 
nection according to fixed laws of nature, and all its 
actions would be determined by those laws. But in its 
intelligible character it would be quite free from every 
external influence and would have a causality of its own. 
In this way we are enabled to think the possibility of 
both nature and freedom existing together in the same 
action. Man, like every object in the sense-world, can 
be viewed from these two points of view. In his 
empirical character he is under the laws of physical 
necessity ; but in his intelligible character he is free and 
determines himself in accordance with the laws of 
Reason. Kant concludes that the laws of nature and 
the law of freedom are not contradictory ; but he does 
not claim to have established the reality, or even the 
possibility of freedom, but merely that nature regarded 
as a phenomenon does not necessarily contradict or ex- 
clude the causality of freedom. 2 

l R., II, 421. H., Ill, 372 f. M., II, 463- 
2 R., II, 437- H., Ill, 385. M., II,48i. 



Teleology in Kanfs Ethics. 91 

The second step in Kant's solution of the problem of 
freedom and necessity is the argument for freedom based 
upon the consciousness of duty. The sense of obliga- 
tion imposed by the moral law implies the power to ful- 
fill that obligation ; it is evidence of freedom. We 
ought, therefore, we can. The first step was to show that 
freedom is not incompatible with physical law ; that one 
can, without doing violence to Reason, think a union of 
both freedom and natural necessity in the same action. 
The second step was to affirm the fact of freedom upon 
the ground of duty. But both of these modes of proof 
were far from satisfactory, since they give us no assurance 
that the ideas of freedom ever become realized in the 
world. They furnished no evidence that the ideas of 
freedom ever find expression or realization in the sense- 
world. It was sufficient to satisfy the demand of the 
moral law if one was conscious of willing in accordance 
with that law. 

Now one can easily understand why Kant could not 
rest content with such a notion of freedom. For the latter 
is a worthless treasure, if its purposes are incapable of real- 
ization in the phenomenal world. It would be mockery 
to endow man with the power of free causality and yet 
confess that he can never know that he actually does 
exert an influence upon the course of events. That is, 
if there is an impassable gulf between nature and free- 
dom so that the latter can exert no influence upon the 
former — if freedom is impotent to fulfill its ideals — then 
it is useless and not worth the labor it costs to defend it. 
Accordingly, in the last Critique, Kant drops a hint as 
to the way in which the idea of freedom may be brought 
into connection with the doctrine of physical necessity, 
viz., through the idea of purposiveness which the Beauti- 
ful and the Organic exhibit. It has already been ex- 



92 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

plained how the Beautiful and the Organic, through 
the design which they display, may be regarded as 
examples of a blending of nature and freedom, how in 
each of those classes of objects there is both a sensuous, 
material element, and also a spiritual or ideal element. 
Kant further explains that the Reflective Judgment, in 
pronouncing certain objects purposive, thereby declares 
that concepts of freedom are realized in the realm of 
nature ; and this declaration is made irrespective of prac- 
tical considerations, i. e., without reference to the possi- 
bility of realizing the purposes of the practical Reason. 
Yet, as will be shown presently, the main use which 
Kant sought to make of the doctrine of purposiveness, 
and the evidences of purpose which he discovered in na- 
ture, was to strengthen the foundations of his ethical 
doctrines, especially the doctrine of Freedom. If one 
raises again the question why Kant was so desirous of 
bringing into closer relation the leading doctrines of 
the critiques of pure and practical Reason, why he 
deemed it so important to mediate the concepts dominat- 
ing the realms of nature and freedom, the answer is, as 
anticipated above, that by so doing he hoped to strength- 
en the ethical doctrines advanced in the earlier Critiques. 
For as every student of the critical philosophy soon comes 
to feel, Kant regarded the interests of the practical Rea- 
son as of. transcendent importance. The one thing of 
absolute worth in all the world is man acting under the 
moral law. Kant's scientific spirit, his intense love 
of truth, will win the admiration of all succeeding ages ; 
but stronger than his devotion to truth, for truth's sake, 
was his devotion to the interests of man as a moral be- 
ing. Accordingly, when the question of the final pur- 
pose of nature is raised, when it is asked, What meaning 
has nature, what is its raison d&tre and ultimate pur- 



Teleology in Kanfs Ethics. 93 

pose, Kant replies that it is only with reference to 
man's moral nature that the world has a meaning. It 
is clear that this is in accord with the note struck in the 
opening sentence of the Metaphysic of Morals : " Noth- 
ing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out 
of it which can be called good without qualification, ex- 
cept a Good Will ;" l and by ' good will ' Kant means a 
Will under the moral law. It is in man as a moral be- 
ing, man possessed of a good will, then, that Kant finds 
a being of absolute worth, and one that gives meaning 
and purpose to the world. " Without man the whole 
creation would be a mere waste, in vain, and with- 
out final purpose ; and it is in man's good will that 
he can have an absolute worth, and in reference to which 
the world can have a final purpose." 2 

It is to be noted further that the world is conceived 
as a sort of training place for man's moral nature ; a 
scene of probation in which he is prepared for a nobler 
and more blessed state hereafter. The hardships, op- 
pression and cruelty which man suffers from the world 
help to free him from the fetters of desire and prepare 
him for the exercise of his nobler faculties. It is as a 
means of discipline to man's moral nature that the 
world has a meaning. 3 

1 Abbott, op. cit, p. 9. 

2 R., IV, 342 f. H., V, 455, f. B.,370, f. 

3 It is interesting to notice the striking similarity between the views 
of Kant and Fichte concerning nature and its purpose with reference 
to the development of man's moral character. Although Fichte's 
thought is expressed in quite different language and is not so explicit 
as Kant's statement, yet his view is substantially a repetition of the 
doctrine of Kant, that the world has its final explanation in serving 
as a means of culture to the moral side of man's nature. In the 
theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge, Fichte showed that if the 
Ego is to be intelligence, part of its infinitely extending activity must 
be canceled, and thus posited in its opposite, the non-ego. In the 
practical part, it is shown that if the Ego is to be Will, if it is to have 



94 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

Now when we remember the great importance which 
Kant attached to the moral element in man's nature, we 
may understand why he was so much concerned to 
render secure the interests and position of the practical 
Reason. Every fact and every argument that could be 
used to strengthen the postulates of morals would be 
brought into seivice. We may suppose, therefore, that 
it was Kant's purpose to use the results of the Critique of 

a causality, it must encounter resistance and opposition in the non- 
ego. As practical, the Ego yearns to change the order of the world, 
to make it conform to its own ideal activity. In other words — and 
this is the point with which we are here concerned — the purpose, or 
function, of nature with reference to man's moral character, is to offer 
resistance to the infinite activity of the Ego ; first, in order that con- 
sciousness and intelligence may be aroused ; second, in order that 
moral ideals may be conceived as a result of the check put upon the 
Ego's activity. 

It is of interest to note, also, that this view of nature and its purpose 
with reference to the conditions of realizing the summiim bonum, 
differs from the view presented in the corresponding discussions of 
the earlier critiques. The summum bonum for Kant consists of two 
factors, perfect holiness and perfect happiness. Now perfect happi- 
ness depends upon the harmony of physical nature with man's moral 
activity. Kant, however, maintained in the first two critiques that this 
harmony is wanting, that nature is a hindrance to the realization of 
happiness. The world, thus regarded, is a bar to the actualization of 
one factor of the summum bonum. But when Kant comes to search 
for the final purpose of nature, and its function with reference to that 
purpose, he is led to regard nature as an indispensable means to the 
culture of man's moral powers. The obstacles, cruelties, and hard- 
ships which oppress man upon every side are disguised blessings, but 
nevertheless blessings, because they help him to free himself from 
the tyranny of sense and enable him to rise to the clear atmosphere 
of pure Reason. According to the one view, the world presents an 
insuperable obstacle to happiness so far as man's power is concerned. 
According to the other, the world is a necessary means of culture to 
man's moral nature. The contradiction inherent in the two views is 
irreconcilable. For so long as the world is useful as a means of 
culture to man's virtue, it is an obstacle the realization of his happi- 
ness ; and when it is brought into harmony with the conditions of 
happiness, it loses its value as a means of moral culture. It thus ap- 
pears that it is impossible to attain both happiness and holiness at the 
same time. The conditions favorable to the realization of the one are 
unfavorable to the realization of the other. 



Teleology hi Kanfs Ethics. 95 

Judgment as a confirmation of the postulates of practical 
Reason, especially the postulates of God and freedom. 
We shall now have to see how the principles established 
in the third Critique strengthen Kant's ethical doctrines. 
First, with reference to the notion of freedom, it is clear 
that if there is evidence that some causes, or forces, 
besides physical causes are at work or have been at work 
in nature, and if there is ground for supposing that those 
forces are analogous to our human reason, we are war- 
ranted in assuming that our own will may find its ideals 
realized in the realm of nature. It has been explained 
already that to regard a thing as purposive is the same 
as to see in it the work of freedom. Moreover, when 
Kant speaks of mediating the realms of nature and free- 
dom he is thinking of the possibility of realizing moral 
concepts in the material world. This does not mean 
merely that one can carry out the rules of skill and art, 
that we can fashion the material world according to 
plans : the mediation of nature and freedom to which he 
refers is the harmonization of nature and moral pur- 
poses. When Kant speaks of mediating nature and 
that which the concept of freedom practically contains, 
it is evident that he has in mind moral freedom and its 
concepts. All doubt as to whether Kant is thinking of 
moral purposes is removed when we recall the distinction 
drawn between technically practical and morally prac- 
tical principles of the Will. He says, " the Will . . 
. . is one of the many natural causes in the world, 
viz., that cause which acts in accordance with concepts. 
All that is represented as possible by means of a will is 
called practically possible. Now if the concept which 
determines the causality of the Will is a natural con- 
cept, then the principles are technically practical ; but if 
it is a concept of freedom, they are morally practical. 



96 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

The rules of skill and art rest upon natural concepts ; 
but the rules of morals are based upon concepts of free- 
dom — the moral law." 1 Therefore, when Kant speaks 
of the ' concepts of freedom,' he invariably has reference 
to the determination of the Will according to moral 
ideals, and when he speaks of mediating nature and 
freedom, he refers to the realization of a moral idea in 
nature. Further, he expressly states that " purposes 
in the world are studied in order to confirm incidentally 
the Ideas that pure practical Reason furnishes ; " 2 those 
Ideas, I take it, are the ideas of God and Freedom. 
Again, when Kant states in the Preface to the Critique 
of Judgment that the a priori concept of purposiveness 
opens out prospects which are advantageous for the 
practical Reason," 3 he doubtless refers to the use one 
can make of that notion to strengthen the grounds of 
belief in God and Freedom. In a word, Kant would use 
the evidence of purposiveness exhibited by nature as a 
means of fortifying the conviction that other forces than 
physical forces exert an influence upon the course of the 
world. 

Not only does the doctrine of purposiveness in nature 
lend itself to the service of Kant's theory of Freedom, 
but the doctrine of the summum bonum is also indirectly 
strengthened thereby. It will be remembered that Kant 
postulated an eternity of existence (immortality) in 
which to attain to perfect virtue, the first and funda- 
mental factor of summum bonum. Now perfect virtue 
must be accompanied by perfect happiness, which is de- 
fined as " the state of a rational being in the world with 
whom everything goes according to his wish and will, 

1 R., IV, 9. H., v, 178. b., 7. 

*R.,IV,345. H., V, 358. B., 373- 

3 R., IV, 6. H..V, 176. B., 4. 



Teleology in Kanfs Ethics. 97 

and rests, therefore, upon the harmony of physical 
nature with his whole end and with the essential deter- 
mining principles of his will." 1 But since man is not 
the cause of nature, and therefore is not able to make it 
harmonize with his practical needs, we must postulate 
the existence of a Power great enough to bring the 
world into accord with man's moral nature. We assume 
the existence of a being distinct from nature itself and 
containing the principle of connection between happi- 
ness and goodness. 2 That Being is God, and any evi- 
dence tending to prove his existence will indirectly sup- 
port the doctrine of the summum bonum. For, as was 
just stated, it is only upon the supposition of the exist- 
ence of God, that we have a guarantee of that due pro- 
portion between virtue and happiness which constitutes 
the summum bonum. 

Now the argument for the existence of God derived 
from " the order, variety, fitness, beauty," which the 
world presents, is, in Kant's language, " the oldest, the 
clearest and the most in conformity with human rea- 
son " ; and although he maintained throughout all his 
writings that " the moral proof is the only one that pro- 
duces conviction," yet the physico-teleological proof has 
the merit of leading the mind in its consideration of the 
world by the way of purposes and through them to an 
intelligible author of the world. The physico-teleologi- 
cal proof by leading the mind to consider the wisdom 
and beauty of the world, and, so, to think a causality 
according to purposes, makes the mind more susceptible 
to the moral argument. " The argument from design 
mingles itself with the moral argument and serves as a 
desirable confirmation of the latter." 

1 Abbott, op. cit y p. 221. 

2 R., VIII, 265. H., V, 130 f. Abbott, op. tit., p. 221 f. 



98 Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

The present section may be summed up by repeating 
that the notion of design suggested by the Beautiful 
and the Organic points to and is evidence of a force or 
principle in nature over and above physical forces. 
There is evidence of the work of purpose in nature ; an 
idea is thought to be immanent in certain of its pro- 
ducts. Now if this belief is well grounded, we are en- 
couraged to hope that our ideas, or purposes, may find 
expression in the natural world ; in short, that man 
through freedom, may actualize the demands of the 
practical Reason. In the second place, the evidence of 
design in nature helps to strengthen the argument for 
the existence of God — a necessary condition of the real- 
ization of the summum bonum. 

In discussing the meaning and function of the princi- 
ple of teleology, no special notice has been taken of the 
fact that Kant maintained to the last that the latter has 
merely subjective validity, and is valuable only as a 
methodological principle of investigation ; that he never 
tires of warning his reader against the dangers involved 
in the attempt to give that principle objective applica- 
tions. Justification for this mode of procedure may, I 
think, be found in the fact that Kant himself, despite 
his repeated warnings, applies the teleological principle 
with as much confidence, apparently, as if he believed it 
to possess objective validity. Moreover, we are justified 
in passing over lightly Kant's protests, because the notion 
of design, if reduced to a merely regulative principle, loses 
its meaning and efficacy as a means of mediating the 
concepts of freedom and nature. For, if we conclude 
that after all there is no purpose, no design in nature, 
then the great structure built up in the Critique of 
Judgment on the unwarranted assumption of purposive- 



Teleology in Kanfs Ethics. 99 

ness in nature, is like a house built upon the sand. It has 
been assumed, throughout this thesis, therefore, that Kant 
would have given teleology a place among the determi- 
nant concepts of the understanding, if he had not been 
bound by the supposed finality and completeness of the 
table of categories drawn up in the first Critique. Kant, 
following the cue he had taken from formal logic, sup- 
posed that he had found a complete list of the possible 
ways in which the pure understanding manifests itself 
in the complex of experience. He could not admit a 
new category without disturbing the table already estab- 
lished ; and, what was more serious than the mere inter- 
ference with the formal symmetry of his scheme, the ad- 
mission of a new category would have necessitated a re- 
construction of his theory of knowledge. It is more than 
probable, therefore, that Kant would have clothed teleol- 
ogy with the power of objective determination if he had 
not been limited by the theory of knowledge worked out in 
the first Critique. For its objective validity can appar- 
ently be justified by appealing to the principle employed 
by Kant as a guide in the deduction of the categories. 
That principle is that, "it is really a sufficient deduction 
of the categories and a justification of their objective valid- 
ity, if we succeed in proving that by them alone, an object 
can be thought. nl That is, a category is a necessary postu- 
late of knowledge, its validity is sufficiently guaranteed, 
if it can be shown that it is required and presupposed in 
our actual experience. Now, we ask, cannot the princi- 
ple of purposiveness be given a place among the catego- 
ries upon this ground ? If it is true, as Kant holds, that 
the mechanical explanation of the world leaves our knowl- 
edge incomplete ; if it is true that we cannot fully under- 
stand nature or any of its parts until we have an insight 
J R., 92 H.,566. M, II, 86. 

LOFC 



ioo Teleology in Kanfs Critical Philosophy. 

into its meaning and purpose, what justification can be 
found for stopping short of the teleological explanation 
of the world ? It is true that teleology does not seem as 
fundamental to the very existence of experience as some 
of the other categories. We can have an experience of 
objects — an experience too which has some degree of 
unity and coherence — without the notion of purpose. 
But as Kant has said, our experience can never be a real 
unity without this idea. It is necessary to satisfy our 
demand for complete explanation, and to make the world 
fully intelligible. And this being so, teleology it seems 
to me to be proved or justified in exactly the same way as 
the principle of causality. Moreover, it might be urged 
- — and this argument would have much weight from 
Kant's standpoint — that the validity of the teleological 
view of the world is a necessary requirement of morals and 
religion. The conception of the world as flowing from 
and guided by a Divine purpose is fundamental to the 
moral and religious life. u That is, it is necessary to 
assume a morally-legislating Being outside the world 
from purely moral grounds on the mere recommendation 
of a purely practical Reason legislating by itself alone. 
. . . We must assume a moral World-Cause in order to 
set before ourselves a final purpose consistently with the 
moral law. n 



LEJL D8 



THE 



PRINCIPLE OF TELEOLOGY 



* The Critical Philosophy of Kant 



BY 



DAVID R. MAJOR, B.S. 



A Thesis presented to the Faculty of Cornell University 

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 

May, 1896 



Ithaca, N. Y. 

Andrus & Church 

1897 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



